fllMlton's  JEnglanb 


John  Milton 

Photogravure  from  the  engraving  by  T.  Woolnoth  of  the  miniature 
painted  in  1667  by  William  Faithorne 


Xucta  Hmcs  flDeafc 

Butboc  of 

"Oreat  rbougbta  for  little  'Cbfnfeers,"  "flDcmo(ra 
of  a  /Billionaire,"  '"Co  lUbom  Aucb 


1llu6tratcO 


Boston 
X,  C.  page  &  Company 

ADGCCCfff 


Copyright,  igo2 
BY  L.  C.  PAGE  &  COMPANY 

(INCORPORATED) 


All  rights  reserved 


Published,  September,  1902 


{Colonial  tyrcss 

Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  C.  H.  Slmonds  &  Co. 
Boston,  Mass.,  U.  S.  A. 


THIS  LITTLE  STUDY 
OF  BYGONE  DAYS  AND  ANCIENT  PLACES 

IS  INSCRIBED  TO  THE 
PURITAN  SCHOLAR  AND  DEAR  FELLOW  PILGRIM 

WHO  WANDERED  WITH  ME 

ONE  HAPPY  SUMMER  THROUGH 

MILTON'S  ENGLAND. 


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MAP  OF  MILTON'S  ENGLAND 


flDUton's  "Residences  in  Xonfcon 

1.  Bread  Street,  1608-1624. 

2.  St.  Bride's  Churchyard,  in  1639  or  1640. 

3.  Aldersgate  Street,   16401645. 

4.  The  Barbican,  1645-1647. 

5.  Holborn,  near  Lincoln's  Inn,  1647-1649. 

6.  Charing  Cross,  opening  into  Spring  Gardens, 
seven  months  in  1649. 

7.  Whitehall,  by  Scotland  Yard,  1649-1652. 

8.  Petty  France,  now  York  Street,  1652-1660. 

9.  Bartholomew  Close,  and  a  prison,  1660. 

10.  Holborn,  near  Red  Lion  Square,  in  1660. 

11.  Jewin  Street,  1661-1663  or  1664. 

12.  Artillery  Walk,  by  Bunhill  Fields  Cemetery, 
1664-1665,  and  from  1666  to  November,  1674. 


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Contents 


CHAPTER  PACK 

I.     THE    LONDON    INTO    WHICH    MILTON    WAS 

BORN ri 

II.     MILTON'S  LIFE  ON  BREAD  STREET        .        .  42 

III.  MILTON  AT  CAMBRIDGE 57 

IV.  MILTON  AT  HORTON 78 

V.     MILTON     ON     THE     CONTINENT.  —  IN     ST. 

BRIDE'S  CHURCHYARD — AT  ALDERSGATE 
STREET.  —  THE   BARBICAN.  —  HOLBORN.  — 

SPRING  GARDENS 85 

VI.     MILTON  AT  WHITEHALL.  —  SCOTLAND  YARD. 

—  PETTY  FRANCE. —  BARTHOLOMEW  CLOSE. 

—  HIGH  HOLBORN.  —  JEWIN  STREET.  —  AR- 
TILLERY WALK    .        .        .        .        .        .no 

VII.    CHALFOXT  ST.  GILES. — ARTILLERY  WALK  .     112 
VIII.     THE  TOWER — TOWER  HILL          .        .        .126 
IX.    ALL  HALLOWS,  BARKING.  —  ST.  OLAVE'S. — 
ST.    CATHERINE     CREE'S.  —  ST.    ANDREW 

UNDERSHAFT 143 

X.    CROSBY  HALL.  —  ST.  HELEN'S.  —  ST.  ETHEL- 

BURGA'S.  —  ST.  GILES'S,  CRIPPLEGATE        .     164 
XI.    GRESHAM     COLLEGE.  —  AUSTIN     FRIARS.  — 
GUILDHALL.  —  ST.     MARY'S,     ALDERMAN- 
BURY. —  CHRIST'S  HOSPITAL.  —  ST.  SEPUL- 
CHRE'S   184 

XII.    CHARTERHOUSE.  —  ST.    JOHN'S    GATE.  —  ST. 

BARTHOLOMEW'S.  —  SMITHFIELD  .  202 


via 


Contents 


CHAPTER 

XIII. 


XIV. 

XV. 

XVI. 
XVII. 


ELY  PLACE.  —  INNS  OF  COURT.  —  TEMPLE 
CHURCH.  —  COVENT  GARDEN.  —  SOMERSET 
HOUSE  . 221 

WHITEHALL.  —  WESTMINSTER  ABBEY     .        .    240 

THE  PRECINCTS  OF  THE  ABBEY.  —  WEST- 
MINSTER PALACE.  —  ST.  MARGARET'S  .  264 

LAMBETH  PALACE.  —  ST.  SAVIOUR'S.  —  LON- 
DON BRIDGE  .  .  .  .  .  .  277 

THE  PLAGUE.  —  THE  FIRE.  —  WREN.  —  LON- 
DON REBUILT 293 


%lst  of  IFIlustrations 


PAGE 


JOHN  MILTON        .        .        .        .        .        .        Frontispiece 

OLD  ST.  PAUL'S  CATHEDRAL 47 

DEAN  COLET,  THE  FOUNDER  OF  ST.  PAUL'S  SCHOOL  55 
SIDNEY  -  SUSSEX  COLLEGE,  CAMBRIDGE  ...  59 

CHRIST'S  COLLEGE,  CAMBRIDGE 62 

ST.  SEPULCHRE'S  CHURCH,  CAMBRIDGE       ...      70 

THE  CHURCH  AT  HORTON 80 

PART  OF  WHITEHALL 101 

REAR   OF    MILTON'S    HOUSE,    AND    TREE    PLANTED 
BY  HIM,   YORK   STREET,  WESTMINSTER  (PETTY 

FRANCE) 103 

IN  MILTON'S  HOUSE  AT  CHALFONT  ST.  GILES  .  .113 
ST.  CATHERINE  CREE  CHURCH  IN  1736  .  .  .  157 
MONUMENT  TO  JOHN  STOW,  ST.  ANDREW  UNDER- 

SHAFT 161 

CHURCH  OF  ST.  ANDREW  UNDERSHAFT  IN  1737        .     163 

CROSBY  HALL 170 

CHURCH  OF  ST.  GILES  CRIPPLECATE  IN  1737     .        .178 

GRESHAM  COLLEGE 184 

THE  CHARTERHOUSE 203 

ST.  JOHN'S  GATE,  CLERKENWELL  ....  209 
CHURCH  OF  ST.  BARTHOLOMEW  THE  GREAT  .  .212 

MIDDLE  TEMPLE  HALL 235 

SOMERSET  HOUSE 239 

THE  KING'S  GATE  AT  WHITEHALL     ....    241 


x  Xist  ot  Illustrations 

rAGK 

OLIVER  CROMWELL 244 

WESTMINSTER  ABBEY  AS  MILTON  KNEW  IT      .        .  250 

IN  THE  POETS'  CORNER 254 

WESTMINSTER  HALL 274 

IN  LAMBETH  PALACE 280 

THE  LOLLARDS'  TOWER,  LAMBETH  PALACE       .        .  283 
GOWER'S    MONUMENT,   IN    ST.    SAVIOUR'S    CHURCH, 

SOUTHWARK. 287 

THE  ROYAL  EXCHANGE 295 

Bow  STEEPLE,  CHEAPSIDE 304 


/HMlton's 


CHAPTER    I. 

THE    LONDON    INTO    WHICH    MILTON    WAS    BORN 

O  every  well-read  man  whose  mother 
tongue  is  English,  whether  he  be  born  in 
America  or  Australia  or  within  sound  of 
Bow  Bells,  the  little  dot  upon  the  map,  marked 
"  London,"  has  an  interest  which  surpasses  that 
of  any  spot  on  earth.  Though  in  his  school-days 
he  was  taught  nothing  of  the  city's  topography  and 
little  of  its  local  history,  while  he  has  laboriously 
learned  outlandish  names  on  every  continent,  never- 
theless, in  his  mind's  eye,  Westminster  Abbey  looms 
larger  than  Chimborazo,  and  a  half-dozen  miles  of 
the  tidal  Thames  have  more  of  meaning  to  him 
than  as  many  thousand  of  the  Amazon,  the  Oxus, 
and  the  Ganges.  To  know  London  —  its  mighty, 
historic  past  and  its  complex,  stupendous  present  — 

is  to  know  the  religion,  the  art,  the  science,  the 

ii 


i»  /Baton's  ]6nolan& 

politics,  —  the  development,  in  short,  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  race. 

Perhaps  there  is  no  better  method  of  coming  to 
know  what  is  most  interesting  in  this  centre  of  all 
English  life  than  studying  one  of  the  supremely 
important  periods  of  its  long  history,  when  it  was 
touched  by  the  spiritual  genius  of  one  of  England's 
most  noble  sons. 

Three  periods  of  a  hundred  years  each  stand  out 
above  all  others  since  the  Christian  era  in  their 
significance  and  richness  of  accomplishment. 

The  third  period  began  about  1790  with  the  birth 
of  the  American  Republic  and  the  outbreak  of  the 
French  Revolution.  The  first  was  that  one  hundred 
years  which  from  1450  to  1550  included  the  begin- 
ning of  the  general  use  of  gunpowder,  which  made 
the  pigmy  with  a  pistol  more  than  the  match  for 
giant  with  spear  and  battleaxe.  Then  it  was  that 

"  Gutenberg  made  thought  cosmopolite 
And  stretched  electric  wires  from  mind  to  mind." 

In  this  period  Italian  art  made  its  most  splendid 
achievements,  and  Luther,  Calvin,  and  Columbus 
gave  man  new  freedom  and  new  possibilities. 

The  middle  period  —  the  one  in  which  England 
made  her  greatest  contribution  to  human  advance- 
ment —  is  the  one  that  we  are  to  consider.  Milton's 


flMlton'8  En0lant>  13 

life  covered  sixty-six  of  its  one  hundred  years.  It 
began  with  the  destruction  of  the  Spanish  Armada 
in  1 588,  and  included  the  brilliant  period  of  explora- 
tion and  adventure  just  before  Milton's  birth,  in 
which  Hawkins,  Drake,  and  Raleigh,  and  other  am- 
bitious and  not  too  scrupulous  sea-rovers  sought,  like 
Cecil  Rhodes,  jewels  and  gold,  empire,  expansion, 
and  renown. 

It  covered  the  chief  work  of  Shakespeare,  Ben 
Jonson,  Lord  Bacon,  Milton,  Bunyan,  Defoe, 
Dryden,  and  fifty  other  men  still  read  to-day.  It 
included  all  of  Milton's  great  Puritan  contempo- 
raries, who,  fighting  for  the  rights  of  Englishmen, 
fought  the  world's  battle  for  freedom.  It  ended  in 
1688  with  the  downfall  of  the  house  of  Stuart  and 
the  final  triumph  of  those  principles  for  which  Vane 
and  Milton  had  struggled  and  died  without  seeing 
the  fruit  of  their  labours.  Since  1688  no  monarch 
has  sat  upon  the  English  throne  by  any  outworn 
theory  of  "  divine  right  of  kings,"  but  only,  explic- 
itly and  emphatically,  by  the  will  of  the  English 
people. 

For  all  believers  in  the  people,  for  all  who  honour 
Washington  and  Jefferson  and  Lincoln,  Robert 
Burns,  John  Bright  and  Gladstone,  the  century  that 
knew  Cromwell  and  Milton,  Sir  Harry  Vane  and 
Sir  John  Eliot,  John  Hampden,  John  Winthrop  and 


i4  /iDflton's 

William  Bradford  must,  more  than  most  others, 
have  significance. 

John  Milton  was  born  in  London  in  1608;  and 
it  is  chiefly  the  London  of  the  twenty  years  that 
intervened  between  the  Spanish  Armada  and  his 
birth  which  we  are  to  consider  in  this  chapter. 

As  neither  man  nor  anything  that  he  has  made 
can  be  well  understood  except  as  they  are  related 
to  their  origins,  so  to  understand  the  names,  the 
customs,  and  the  daily  sights  that  the  boy  Milton 
knew  in  this  city,  where  for  nearly  two  millenniums 
before  his  day  history  had  been  making,  one  must 
go  back  and  take  a  brief  survey. 

Into  the  mooted  question  of  the  origin  of  the 
name  of  London  we  need  not  enter.  Suffice  to  say 
that  when  we  first  hear  of  London  it  was  a  little 
hamlet  on  a  hill  of  perhaps  one  hundred  feet  in 
height,  lying  between  two  ranges  of  higher  hills. 
At  the  north  rose  what  we  now  call  Highgate 
and  Hampstead,  about  450  feet  high,  and  to 
the  south,  beyond  the  marshes  and  the  Thames 
and  a  broad  shallow  lagoon,  whose  little  islands 
once  marked  the  site  of  Southwark,  rose  the 
Surrey  hills,  from  one  of  which  in  our  day  the 
Crystal  Palace  gleams.  Men  with  stone  weapons 
slew  antlered  deer  upon  the  little  marshy  island  of 
Thorney,  now  Westminster.  What  is  now  St. 


flDtlton's  England  15 

James's  Park  was  then  an  estuary.  Streams  flowed 
down  the  valleys  between  the  wooded  hills.  Only 
their  names  remain  to-day  to  tell  us,  among  the 
present  stony  streets,  where  rivers  and  brooks  once 
flowed.  West  Bourn,  Ty  Bourn,  Hole  Bourne,  the 
southern  part  of  which  was  called  the  "  Fleet," 
flowed  from  the  hills  in  the  northwest  in  a  south- 
easterly direction  into  the  Thames.  Just  east  of  the 
last  named  was  the  little  brook  called  "  Wallbrook," 
by  whose  banks,  on  the  present  Cornhill,  the  first 
settlement  was  made.  All  these  names,  of  course, 
belong  to  a  time  long  subsequent  to  the  first  rude 
settlements  made  in  unknown  antiquity  before  the 
Christian  era.  The  Tyburn  at  its  mouth  divided, 
enclosing  the  island  Thorney,  upon  which  in  later 
times  arose  Westminster.  Hole  Bourne  was  so 
named  because  of  its  running  through  a  deep  hollow. 
The  lower  part  of  the  river  —  the  Fleet  —  was 
tidal,  and  formed  the  western  bulwark  of  London 
for  centuries.  It  emptied  into  the  Thames  where 
now  is  Blackfriars  Bridge. 

Far  eastward  from  the  Wallbrook,  through  broad 
marshes,  flowed  the  river  Lea  down  from  the  country 
known  to  us  as  Essex  and  Hertfordshire.  It  emptied 
into  the  Thames  east  of  the  Isle  of  Dogs,  which 
is  now  covered  with  huge  docks  for  the  shipping  of 
the  great  modern  city.  The  Lea  still  flows  as  in 


16  flMlton's  England 

the  time  of  the  Romans  and  Saxons,  though  its 
marshes  have  largely  disappeared.  But  the  other 
smaller  streams  are  now  obliterated,  though  in 
Milton's  time  their  course  could  still  partly  be  dis- 
cerned, and  their  degradation  into  drains  was  not 
complete. 

Through  Bread  Street,  on  which  Milton  was  born, 
passed  Watling  Street,  the  old  Roman  road,  named 
later  by  the  Saxons,  which  with  the  Roman  wall 
around  the  city  alone  left  traces  of  the  Roman 
occupation  in  the  poet's  day.  The  mosaic  floors,  the 
coins,  bronze  weapons  and  scanty  remains  of  the 
Roman  period,  before  the  fourth  century  A.  D.,  are 
better  known  to  us  than  to  the  Londoners  of  his 
time.  The  Roman  city  spread  itself  along  the  river 
from  the  Fleet  on  the  west  to  the  site  of  the  present 
Tower  of  London  on  the  east,  and  then  gradually 
crept  northward.  By  the  time  the  Roman  wall  was 
built  in  about  360  A.  D.,  the  circumference  of  the 
city,  counting  the  river  front,  was  two  miles  and 
three  quarters.  Here  stood  the  town,  not  in  an 
area  of  fertile  fields,  but  surrounded  by  forests  on 
the  north,  and  on  all  other  sides  by  wide-spreading 
marshes.  The  enclosed  space  was  originally  380 
acres,  to  which  later  additions  were  made  upon 
the  north  and  east.  The  wall  was  built  of 
layers  of  thin  red  brick  and  stone  about  twenty 


/Dillon's  Enolanfc  17 


feet  high,  and  was  finished  by  bastions  and 
additional  defences  at  the  angles.  Though  scant 
traces  of  any  of  the  original  construction  now  re- 
main, much  of  the  Roman  wall,  and,  at  all  events, 
a  complete  wall  of  mingled  Roman  and  mediaeval 
work,  encircled  the  site  of  the  ancient  city  limits  in 
Milton's  day,  and  its  gates  were  nightly  locked  until 
long  after  his  death. 

At  first,  two  land  gates  had  sufficed,  but  in  1600 
there  were  seven;  on  the  east,  Aldgate;  further 
north  was  Bishopsgate;  further  west,  upon  the 
northern  wall,  were  Moorgate  and  Cripplegate  ;  upon 
the  west,  Aldersgate,  protected  by  the  Barbican,  one 
of  the  gateway  towers  ;  and  south  of  this,  Newgate 
and  Ludgate.  Upon  the  waterside,  Dowgate,  at  the 
mouth  of  the  ancient  Wallbrook,  now  covered  by 
the  narrow  street  of  the  same  name,  and  Billingsgate, 
further  east  toward  the  Tower  of  London,  gave 
access  to  the  city. 

In  Roman  days  the  whole  enclosure  was  crossed 
by  two  great  streets,  —  Watling  Street,  which  came 
from  the  northwest  and  entered  near  Newgate,  and 
Ermyn  Street,  which  came  from  the  northeast. 
Where  these  two  met  was  later  the  market  or  chepe, 
from  the  Saxon  word  meaning  sale. 

Of  the  Saxon  period,  which  followed  the  sudden 
and  mysterious  abandonment  of  their  city  by  the 


is  /IDtlton's  England 

Romans  after  their  occupation  of  it  for  three  cen- 
turies, we  have  to-day  a  thousand  traces  in  London 
names.  Evidently  the  early  Anglo-Saxon,  like  his 
descendants,  had  a  marked  love  of  privacy  and 
seclusion.  His  sense  of  the  sacred  nature  of  prop- 
erty was  as  marked  in  him  as  it  has  always  been 
in  his  posterity.  The  idea  of  inclosure  or  protection 
is  made  prominent  in  the  constantly  recurring  termi- 
nations of  ton,  ham,  worth,  stoke,  stow,  fold,  garth, 
park,  hay,  burgh,  bury,  brough,  borrow.  Philologic 
study  of  continental  terms  displays  no  such  marked 
emphasis  upon  the  idea  of  property  and  demarkation 
lines.  Says  the  learned  Taylor :  "  It  may  indeed  be 
said,  without  exaggeration,  that  the  universal  preva- 
lence throughout  England  of  names  containing  this 
word,  Homes  [viz.,  ham,  ton,  etc.],  gives  us  the  clue 
to  the  real  strength  of  the  national  character  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  race."  Kensington,  Brompton,  Pad- 
dington,  Islington,  are  but  a  few  of  the  local  names 
which  illustrate  in  their  suffix  the  origin  of  the 
word  town  —  originally  a  little  hedged  enclosure. 
[German  zaun  or  hedge.]  The  most  important  rem- 
nant of  the  Saxon  influence  is  to  be  found  in 
the  syllable  ing  which  occurs  in  thousands  of 
London  names.  This  was  the  usual  Anglo-Saxon 
patronymic,  and  occurs  most  often  in  the  middle 
syllable,  as  in  Buckingham,  the  home  of  Buck's 


flDUton's  Bnatant)  19 


son;  Wellington,  the  village  of  Wells's  son,  or  the 
Wells  clan.  Family  settlements  are  traceable  by  this 
syllable  ing. 

Chipping  or  chepe  was  the  old  English  term  for 
market-place,  and  Westcheap  and  Eastcheap  were 
the  old  London  markets  of  Saxon  days.  When  the 
word  market  takes  the  place  in  England  of  the  old 
Anglo-Saxon  chipping,  we  may  assume  the  place 
to  be  of  later  origin. 

The  Saxons,  unlike  the  Romans,  were  not  road- 
makers,  and  when  they  applied  the  English  word 
street,  corrupted  from  the  Latin  strata,  as  in  the 
case  of  Watling  Street  —  the  ancient  road  which 
they  renamed  —  we  shall  usually  find  that  it  marks 
a  work  of  Roman  origin. 

Clerkemvell,  Bridewell,  Holywell,  and  names 
with  similar  suffixes  indicate  the  site  of  wells  from 
which  it  would  seem  that  the  ancient  Londoners 
derived  their  water  supply  when  it  was  not  taken 
from  the  Thames,  the  Holborn,  or  the  Tyburn. 
Hithe,  which  means  landing-place,  has  in  later  times 
largely  disappeared,  except  at  Rotherhithe  near 
Greenwich. 

With  the  conversion  of  the  Saxons  in  the  seventh 
century  appear  the  names  of  Saxon  saints.  Among 
the  notable  ones  to  whom  churches  were  built  was 
holy  St.  Ethelburga,  the  wife  of  Sebert,  the  first 


20  flDUton's 

Christian  king,  whose  church  to-day  stands  on  the 
site  of  its  Saxon  predecessor  beside  Bishopsgate, 
on  the  very  spot  where  stood  the  Roman  gate. 
Another  was  St.  Osyth,  queen  and  martyr,  whose 
name  also  survives  in  Sise,  or  St.  Osyth's  Lane,  and 
whose  black  and  grimy  churchyard  was  doubtless 
green  in  Milton's  day.  To  these  must  be  added  St. 
Dunstan,  St.  Swithin,  St.  Edmund  the  Martyr,  and 
St.  Botolph,  to  whom  no  less  than  four  churches 
were  erected. 

The  devastating  fire  of  1135  swept  London  from 
end  to  end,  and  not  a  Saxon  structure  remained, 
though  the  new  ones  that  replaced  them  were  built  in 
similar  fashion.  With  the  coming  of  the  Danes  were 
built  churches  to  their  patrons,  St.  Olaf  and  St. 
Magnus;  and  in  the  centre  of  the  Strand,  St. 
Clement's,  Danes,  is  said  to  mark  the  spot  where 
tradition  assigns  a  settlement  of  Danes. 

As  of  the  Saxons,  so  of  the  Danes,  the  most 
permanent  record  of  their  influence  on  London  and 
the  Danish  district  of  England  was  in  their  suffixes 
to  words  which  still  survive.  By,  meaning  first  a 
farm  and  later  a  village,  is  one  which  occurs  some 
six  hundred  times.  To  this  day  our  common  term, 
a  by-law,  recalls  the  Dane. 

The  names  of  the  street  on  which  Milton  was 
born  and  of  those  in  the  near  neighbourhood  to  the 


rtMlton's  England  21 

booths  that  once  surrounded  Cheap  indicate  the 
products  formerly  sold  there,  or  the  trades  carried  on 
within  them.  To  the  north  the  streets  were  called : 
Wood,  Milk,  Iron,  Honey,  Poultry;  to  the  south 
they  were  named  after  Bread,  Candles,  Soap,  Fish, 
Money-Changing.  Friday  Street  was  one  on  which 
fish  and  food  for  fast  days  were  sold. 

Of  Saxon  and  Danish  London  there  remains  in 
the  old  city  proper  not  one  stone.  Of  Norman 
London,  we  have  to-day  the  great  White  Tower,  the 
crypt  of  Bow  Church,  from  whose  round  arches  it 
received  its  name,  the  crypt  of  St.  John's  Priory  out- 
side the  city,  part  of  the  church  of  St.  Bartholomew's 
the  Great,  and  part  of  St.  Ethelburga's,  Bishopsgate. 
Much  more  existed  before  the  Great  Fire  of  1666. 
The  chief  characteristics  of  the  English  Norman 
work  are  the  half -circular  Roman  arch,  seen  in  all 
Romanesque  work:  massive  walls  unsupported  by 
great  buttresses  and  not  pierced  by  the  large  win- 
dows which  appear  in  the  later  Gothic  style;  square 
towers  without  spires;  barrel  vaulting  over  nave 
and  aisles  in  the  churches;  massive  piers;  the  use 
of  colour  upon  ornaments  and  wall  surfaces  instead 
of  in  the  windows  as  in  Gothic  buildings;  small 
interlacing  round  arches  in  wall  surfaces;  zigzag 
and  "  dog  tooth  "  decoration ;  "  pleated  "  capitals ; 
carvings,  more  or  less  grotesque,  of  human  or 


22 


animal  forms.  English  Norman,  like  English 
Gothic,  never  equalled  the  French  work  in  both 
these  styles. 

In  Milton's  boyhood  the  impress  of  Plantagenet 
London  was  everywhere  visible.  Throughout  the 
centuries,  from  the  earliest  to  the  latest  Plantagenet, 
the  influence  of  the  Church  reigned  supreme.  It 
has  been  estimated  that  then  at  least  one-fourth  of 
the  area  of  all  London  was  in  some  way  connected 
with  the  Church,  or  the  extensive  conventual  estab- 
lishments belonging  to  it.  Their  Gothic  towers  and 
steeples  rose  clean  and  pure  to  the  soft  blue  of  the 
London  sky,  unfouled  with  coal  smoke.  Their  lofty 
walls,  over  which  English  ivy  crept  and  roses 
bloomed,  shut  from  the  narrow  streets  of  the  old 
town  stretches  of  soft  greensward  and  shady  walks. 
Among  these  rose  dormitories,  refectories,  cloisters, 
and  the  more  prosaic  offices.  At  every  hour  bells 
pealed  and  constantly  reminded  the  citizens  of 
prayer  and  service. 

Hardly  a  street  but  had  its  monastery  or  convent 
garden.  Most  of  these  were  just  within  or  just 
without  the  city  wall,  as  they  were  founded  when 
the  city  had  already  become  of  a  considerable  size, 
and  they  were  therefore  located  in  the  more  open 
parts.  The  enormous  size  of  the  equipment  of  these 
religious  establishments  before  the  Reformation,  in 


flDtlton's  JEnolanfc  23 


the  century  when  Milton's  grandfather  was  young, 
can  scarcely  be  conceived  to-day  when  the  adjuncts 
of  the  Church  have  shrunk  almost  to  nothingness. 
In  Milton's  boyhood,  it  must  have  been  an  easy 
task  among  the  recent  ruins  and  traditions  of  these 
great  establishments  to  reconstruct  them  to  the 
imagination  in  their  entirety.  Sir  Walter  Besant 
in  his  graphic  book  on  "  London  "  details  the  num- 
bers supported  in  this  earlier  period  by  St.  Paul's 
alone.  The  cathedral  body  included  the  bishop, 
dean,  the  four  archdeacons,  the  treasurer,  the  pre- 
centor, the  chancellor,  thirty  greater  canons,  twelve 
lesser  canons,  about  fifty  chaplains  or  chantry  priests, 
and  thirty  vicars.  Of  lower  rank  were  the  sacrist 
and  three  vergers,  the  servitors,  the  surveyor,  the 
twelve  scribes,  the  book  transcriber,  the  bookbinder, 
the  chamberlain,  the  rent-collector,  the  baker,  the 
brewer,  the  singing  men  and  choir  boys,  of  whom 
priests  were  made,  the  bedesmen  and  the  poor  folk. 
In  addition  to  these  were  the  servants  and  assistants 
of  all  these  officers;  the  sextons,  gravediggers, 
gardeners,  bell  ringers,  makers  and  menders  of  the 
ecclesiastical  robes,  cleaners  and  sweepers,  carpen- 
ters, masons,  painters,  carvers,  and  gilders. 

A  similar  body,  though  somewhat  smaller,  was 
required  in  every  other  religious  foundation.  No 
wonder  that  not  only  one-fourth  of  the  area  but  also 


24  /IMlton's  England 

one-fourth  of  the  whole  city  population  was  needed 
to  supply  these  demands. 

From  Norman  London  there  remained,  besides 
St.  Paul's  vast  monastic  house,  the  priory  of  St.  Bar- 
tholomew's, the  house  of  St.  Mary  Overie's,  the 
hospital  of  St.  Katharine's,  and  the  priory  of  the 
Holy  Trinity.  In  Plantagenet  London,  we  find  the 
priory  of  Crutched  —  that  is,  Crossed  —  Friars, 
who  wore  a  red  cross  upon  their  back  and  carried 
an  iron  cross  in  their  hands.  Farther  north  upon 
the  other  side  of  Aldgate  stood  the  great  monastery 
of  Holy  Trinity,  the  richest  and  most  magnificent  in 
the  city ;  and  the  priory  of  St.  Helen's,  Bishopsgate, 
whose  noble  ruins  had  not  disappeared  more  than 
a  century  after  Milton's  death.  Farther  west  and 
north  of  Broad  Street  stood  the  splendid  house  of 
Austin  Friars ;  still  farther  west  was  St.  Martin's  le 
Grand,  and  just  beyond,  the  foundation  of  the  Gray 
Friars  or  Franciscans.  Christ's  Hospital,  which  lies 
chiefly  on.  the  site  of  this  old  monastery,  we  shall 
consider  in  a  later  chapter.  In  the  southwest  corner 
of  the  London  wall  dwelt  the  Black  Friars  —  the 
Dominicans  —  whose  name  to-day  is  perpetuated  in 
Blackfriars  Bridge. 

Outside  the  walls  were  other  establishments  as 
rich  and  splendid  as  these  that  were  within  them. 
Farther  west  than  the  house  of  the  Black  Friars  was 


flMlton's  England  25 


the  monastery  of  White  Friars  or  Carmelites,  and 
beyond  these  the  ancient  site  of  the  Knights  Tem- 
plar, whose  Temple  church,  in  Milton's  day,  as  well 
as  ours,  alone  remained.  North  of  the  Norman 
St.  Bartholomew's  was  the  house  of  the  Carthusians, 
whose  long  history,  ending  in  the  Charterhouse, 
must  be  reserved  to  a  later  chapter.  Northwest 
from  the  Norman  house  of  St.  Bartholomew's  stood 
the  Norman  priory  of  St.  John's  of  Jerusalem. 
Adjacent  to  it  lay  the  twin  foundation  —  the  priory 
of  Black  Nuns. 

South  of  the  Thames  lay  two  great  establish- 
ments, Bermondsey  and  St.  Thomas's  Hospital, 
while  of  the  hospitals  situated  among  the  priories 
and  monasteries  to  the  north  were  the  hospital  of  St. 
Mary  of  Bethlehem  and  the  great  hospital  of  St. 
Mary  Spital,  both  of  which  were  originally  planned 
for  religious  houses.  This  is  but  a  dry,  brief  cata- 
logue, not  of  all  the  great  religious  houses,  but 
only  of  those  whose  walls,  more  or  less  transformed 
or  ruined,  were  within  walking  distance  and  most 
familiar  to  the  boy  Milton  in  his  rambles  around 
the  city  of  his  birth. 

Milton  must  have  seen  several  "  colleges  "  as 
well  as  monasteries  ;  among  these  were  St.  Michael's 
College  on  Crooked  Lane,  and  Jesus  Commons,  and 
a  "  college  "  for  poor  and  aged  priests,  called  the 


26  /HMiton's  England 

"  Papey."  A  portion  of  the  "  college  "  of  Whit- 
tington  still  remained,  and  on  the  site  of  the  present 
Mercers'  Chapel  stood  a  college  for  the  education 
of  priests,  whose  splendid  church  remained  until  the 
Great  Fire. 

Every  lover  of  the  beautiful  must  fondly  dwell 
upon  the  glorious  period  of  Gothic  architecture 
during  which  these  structures  rose.  Though  London 
in  the  Tudor  period  eclipsed  in  wealth  and  magnifi- 
cence the  city  of  earlier  times,  the  Elizabethan  age 
had  no  power  in  its  development  of  pseudo-classic 
forms  to  equal  the  dignity  and  beauty  of  the  Norman 
and  Gothic  work.  Then  the  unknown  reverent  artist 
wrought  not  for  fame  or  earthly  glory,  but  dedicated 
his  labour  to  the  God  of  Nature,  whose  laws  and 
principles  were  his  chief  guide.  These  were  the 
days  when  vine  and  tendril  and  the  subtle  curves  of 
leaf  and  flower  or  supple  animal  form  suggested  the 
enrichment  of  capital  and  corbel.  No  cheap  and 
servile  imitation  of  lute  and  drum,  of  spear  and 
sword  and  ribbon,  of  casque  and  crown  and  plume, 
displayed  a  paucity  of  inventive  genius  and  aban- 
donment of  nature's  teaching  for  that  of  milliner 
and  armourer.  Let  John  Ruskin,  in  many  ways 
the  spiritual  son  of  the  beauty-loving  Puritan,  John 
Milton,  interpret  to  us  the  meaning  of  those  poems 
reared  in  stone,  which  Milton's  age  was  fast  dis- 
placing : 


/IMlton's  England  27 

"  You  have  in  the  earlier  Gothic  less  wonderful 
construction,  less  careful  masonry,  far  less  expres- 
sion of  harmony  of  parts  in  the  balance  of  the 
building.  Earlier  work  always  has  more  or  less 
of  the  character  of  a  good,  solid  wall  with  irregular 
holes  in  it,  well  carved  wherever  there  was  room. 
But  the  last  phase  of  Gothic  has  no  room  to  spare; 
it  rises  as  high  as  it  can  on  narrowest  foundations, 
stands  in  perfect  strength  with  the  least  possible 
substance  in  its  bars ;  connects  niche  with  niche  and 
line  with  line  in  an  exquisite  harmony  from  which 
no  stone  can  be  removed,  and  to  which  you  can  add 
not  a  pinnacle;  and  yet  introduces  in  rich,  though 
now  more  calculated  profusion,  the  living  elements 
of  its  sculpture,  sculpture  in  quatrefoils,  gargoyles, 
niches,  in  the  ridges  and  hollows  of  its  mouldings  — 
not  a  shadow  without  meaning  and  not  a  line  with- 
out life.  But  with  this  very  perfection  of  his  work 
came  the  unhappy  pride  of  the  builder  in  what  he 
had  done.  As  long  as  he  had  been  merely  raising 
clumsy  walls  and  carving  them,  like  a  child,  in  way- 
wardness of  fancy,  his  delight  was  in  the  things  he 
thought  of  as  he  carved;  but  when  he  had  once 
reached  this  pitch  of  constructive  science,  he  began 
to  think  only  how  cleverly  he  could  put  the  stones 
together.  The  question  was  not  now  with  him, 
What  can  I  represent  ?  but,  How  high  can  I  build  — 


28  /BMlton's 

how  wonderfully  can  I  hang  this  arch  in  air?  and 
the  catastrophe  was  instant  —  architecture  became 
in  France  a  mere  web  of  woven  lines,  —  in  England 
a  mere  grating  of  perpendicular  ones.  Redundance 
was  substituted  for  invention,  and  geometry  for 
passion."  ("The  Two  Paths.") 

It  is  in  this  later  Gothic,  for  example  the  much 
admired  Chapel  of  Henry  VII.  at  Westminster, 
that  we  find  this  redundancy  of  motive  and  poverty 
of  invention,  as,  for  instance,  in  the  repetition  of  the 
portcullis  —  the  Tudor  heraldic  ornament.  Ruskin 
would  teach  us  that  heraldic  signs,  though  suited 
for  a  few  conspicuous  places,  as  proclaiming  the 
name  or  rank  or  office  of  the  owner,  become  imperti- 
nent when  blazoned  everywhere,  and  are  wholly 
devoid  of  beauty  when  they  reproduce  by  the  hun- 
dred some  instrument  of  prosaic  use. 

Plantagenet  London,  and  its  many  remnants  of 
domestic  architecture,  in  Milton's  day,  illustrated 
fully  Ruskin's  dictum  that  "  Gothic  is  not  an  art 
for  knights  and  nobles ;  it  is  an  art  for  the  people ; 
it  is  not  an  art  [merely]  for  churches  and  sanc- 
tuaries; it  is  an  art  for  houses  and  homes.  .  .  . 
When  Gothic  was  invented  houses  were  Gothic 
as  well  as  churches.  .  .  .  Good  Gothic  has  always 
been  the  work  of  the  commonalty,  not  of  the 
churches.  .  Gothic  was  formed  in  the  baron's 


flMlton's  J£n0lanfc  29 

castle  and  the  burgher's  street.  It  was  formed  by 
the  thoughts  and  hands  and  powers  of  labouring 
citizens  and  warrior  kings."  ("  Crown  of  Wild 
Olive.") 

In  a  memorable  passage  in  his  lectures  on  Archi- 
tecture in  Edinburgh,  Ruskin  recalls  the  power  with 
which  the  Gothic  forms  appeal  to  the  imagination 
when  embodied  in  poetry  and  romance.  He  asks 
what  would  result  were  the  words  tower  and  turret, 
and  the  mental  pictures  that  they  conjure  up,  re- 
moved. Suppose  Walter  Scott  had  written,  instead 
of  "  the  old  clock  struck  two  from  a  turret  adjoin- 
ing my  bedchamber,"  "  the  old  clock  struck  two 
from  the  landing  at  the  top  of  the  stair."  "  What," 
he  asks,  "would  have  become  of  the  passage?" 
"  That  strange  and  thrilling  interest  with  which 
such  words  strike  you  as  are  in  any  wise  connected 
with  Gothic  architecture,  as  for  instance,  vault, 
arch,  spire,  pinnacle,  battlement,  barbican,  porch,  — 
words  everlastingly  poetical  and  powerful,  —  is  a 
most  true  and  sure  index  that  the  things  themselves 
are  delightful  to  you."  As  to  stylobates,  and  pedi- 
ments, and  triglyphs,  and  all  the  classic  forms,  even 
when  pure  and  unvulgarised  by  decadent  Renais- 
sance work,  how  utterly  they  fail  to  satisfy  the 
poetic  instinct  of  the  man  of  English  lineage  is  well 
expressed  by  James  Russell  Lowell,  as  he  stood 
within  the  portals  of  Chartres  Minster : 


3° 

"  The  Grecian  gluts  me  with  its  perfectness 
Unanswerable  as  Euclid,  self-contained, 
The  one  thing  finished  in  this  hasty  world. 
But  ah  !  this  other,  this  that  never  ends, 
Still  climbing,  luring  fancy  still  to  climb, 
As  full  of  morals,  half  divined,  as  life, 
Graceful,  grotesque,  with  ever  new  surprise 
Of  hazardous  caprices,  sure  to  please, 
Heavy  as  nightmare,  airy  light  as  fern, 
Imagination's  very  self  in  stone  !  " 

Of  the  type  of  architecture  most  favoured  by 
Milton's  contemporaries,  Ruskin  says : 

"  Renaissance  architecture  is  the  school  which 
has  conducted  men's  inventive  and  constructive 
faculties  from  the  Grand  Canal  [in  England,  he 
might  have  said,  old  Chester  or  old  Canterbury]  to 
Gower  Street,  from  the  marble  shaft  and  the  lancet 
arch  and  the  wreathed  leafage  ...  to  the  square 
cavity  in  the  brick  wall."  This  is  a  strong  expres- 
sion of  a  half  truth.  But  the  baldness  and  blankness 
of  Gower  Street  and  a  thousand  other  streets  is  not 
so  hopeless  as  the  pretentious  bastard  Renaissance 
work  which  modern  London  shows.  The  rich  mod- 
ern world  can  not  plead  poverty  as  its  excuse  for 
ugliness.  Even  the  village  cottage  of  three  cen- 
turies ago,  as  well  as  the  city  streets,  showed  a 
popular  love  of  beauty  and  a  power  to  attain  it 
which  few  architects,  or  rather  few  of  their  patrons, 
permit  the  modern  world  to  see. 


rtMlton's  Bnalanfc  31 


But  let  the  lover  of  past  beauty  take  new  courage. 
Hundreds  of  signs  disclose  the  dawn  of  a  revival  of 
true  taste  in  which  England  and  America  bid  fair 
to  lead  the  world. 

Though  in  most  of  its  forms  the  Renaissance  art 
that  accompanied  the  new  age  of  discovery  and 
expansion  of  commerce  in  the  century  before  Milton 
indicates  a  decadence  of  the  love  of  beauty,  excep- 
tion must  be  made  to  much  delightful  domestic  archi- 
tecture that  has  the  Tudor  stamp  and  is  distinctly 
English,  and  unknown  on  the  Continent. 

The  introduction  into  the  background  of  portraits 
of  such  classic  outlines  as  domes,  arches,  and  marble 
pilasters,  is  a  device  used  by  painters  when  they 
would  flatter  the  vanity  of  their  patrons  and  give 
them  a  courtly  setting.  No  Byzantine  or  Norman 
arch,  or  Gothic  spire  or  portal,  however  rich  in  dec- 
oration, can  equal  the  severe  but  pompous  lines  of  the 
Renaissance  in  conveying  a  sense  of  pride.  Says 
Ruskin  :  "  There  is  in  them  an  expression  of  aristoc- 
racy in  its  worst  characters  :  coldness,  perfectness  of 
training,  incapability  of  emotion,  want  of  sympathy 
with  the  weakness  of  lower  men,  blank,  hopeless, 
haughty  insufficiency.  All  these  characters  are  writ- 
ten in  the  Renaissance  architecture  as  plainly  as  if 
they  were  graven  on  it  in  words.  For,  observe,  all 
other  architectures  have  something  in  them  that  com- 


32  /iDilton's  England 

mon  men  can  enjoy ;  some  concession  to  the  simplici- 
ties of  humanity,  some  daily  bread  for  the  hunger 
of  the  multitude;  quaint  fancy,  rich  ornament, 
bright  colour,  something  that  shows  a  sympathy 
with  men  of  ordinary  minds  and  hearts,  and  this 
wrought  out,  at  least  in  the  Gothic,  with  a  rudeness 
showing  that  the  workman  did  not  mind  exposing 
his  own  ignorance  if  he  could  please  others.  But  the 
Renaissance  is  exactly  the  contrary  of  this.  It  is 
rigid,  cold,  inhuman ;  incapable  of  glowing,  of  stoop- 
ing, of  conceding,  for  an  instant.  Whatever  excel- 
lence it  has  is  refined,  high-trained,  and  deeply 
erudite,  a  kind  which  the  architect  well  knows  no 
common  mind  can  taste.  He  proclaims  it  to  you 
aloud. .  .  .  All  the  pleasure  you  can  have  in  any- 
thing I  do  is  in  its  proud  breeding,  its  rigid  formal- 
ism, its  perfect  finish,  its  cold  tranquillity.  .  .  .  And 
the  instinct  of  the  world  felt  this  in  a  moment.  .  .  . 
Princes  delighted  in  it,  and  courtiers.  The  Gothic 
was  good  for  God's  worship,  but  this  was  good  for 
man's  worship.  .  .  .  The  proud  princes  and  lords 
rejoiced  in  it.  It  was  full  of  insult  to  the  poor  in 
its  every  line.  It  would  not  be  built  of  materials 
at  the  poor  man's  hand.  ...  It  would  be  of  hewn 
stone;  it  would  have  its  windows  and  its  doors  and 
its  stairs  and  its  pillars  in  lordly  order  and  of  stately 
size." 


/IDUton's  JEnalanfc  33 

To  the  novice,  who  is  beginning  to  decipher  the 
inner  meaning  of  sermons  in  stones  in  which  the 
ages  have  recorded,  all  unconsciously,  the  life  and 
aspiration  of  the  past,  these  words  may  sound  harsh 
and  fantastic. 

With  the  memory  of  such  rare  geniuses  as 
Michael  Angelo  and  Wren,  and  their  awe-inspiring 
cathedrals,  built  in  the  Renaissance  forms,  one  may 
hesitate  before  completely  accepting  Ruskin's  dictum. 
Ruskin  himself  has  done  homage  to  their  genius  and 
the  greatness  of  their  work.  "  There  were  of 
course,"  he  says,  "  noble  exceptions."  Yet  surely 
the  devout  Christian  must  feel  under  their  glorious 
domes  not  so  much  like  praying  and  reverencing  his 
Maker  as  glorifying  the  work  of  men's  hands. 
Under  any  dome  and  architectural  reminder  of 
Roman  thought  and  life,  whether  it  be  Wren's 
mighty  St.  Paul's,  or  his  small  and  exquisitely  pro- 
portioned St.  Stephen's,  Wallbrook,  almost  in  its 
shadow,  the  worshipper  must  feel  something  akin 
to  Ruskin's  sentiment.  A  meek  and  contrite  heart 
feels  alien  and  uncomforted  amid  its  perfection. 

But  Ruskin's  word  chiefly  concerns  the  more  per- 
fect Gothic  of  the  Continent,  and  the  manifestations 
there  —  worse  than  any  in  England  —  of  riotous 
and  insolent  excess  in  its  Renaissance  work.  The 
most  ostentatious  and  offensive  monument  in  West- 


34  flMlton's  England 

minster  Abbey,  which  is  adorned  with  meaningless 
mouldings,  artificial  garlands,  and  cherubs  weeping 
hypocritic  tears,  is  not  so  odious  as  those  which 
Venice,  Rome,  Antwerp,  and  a  hundred  other  cities 
reared  upon  the  Continent.  Those  tasteless,  costly 
structures  which  modern  Englishmen  are  but  now 
learning  to  condemn  illustrate  completely  the  pride 
and  arrogance  of  a  world  drunk  with  new  wealth, 
in  which  fashion  supplants  beauty. 

Yet  to  a  large  extent  the  England  of  the  splendid 
Tudor  period  and  the  England  of  the  Stuarts  sub- 
stituted for  the  beautiful  and  sincere  forms  of  an 
earlier  period  a  style  of  construction  and  decoration 
which  showed  distinct  decadence.  Witness  the 
carvings  in  the  chapel  and  dining-hall  of  the  Charter- 
house, new  in  Milton's  boyhood,  the  carvings  in 
the  dining-halls  of  the  different  Inns  of  Court,  and 
mural  tablets  everywhere  with  their  obese  cherubs 
and  ghastly  death's  heads.  In  the  quaint  beam  and 
plaster  front  of  Staple's  Inn  on  Holborn  still  remains 
the  ancient  type  of  domestic  architecture  which  ante- 
dated and  accompanied  Milton's  boyhood.  Hun- 
dreds of  such  cosy,  homelike  residences  with  their 
ample  windows  of  many  leaded  panes  lined  the  city 
streets.  The  merchants  who  lived  in  them  sold  their 
wares  in  the  shops  beneath,  and,  if  they  were  artifi- 
cers, housed  their  apprentices  within  them.  They 


ADUton's  Bnglanfc  35 

were  built  solidly  to  last  for  centuries.  Strong  beams 
upheld  the  broad,  low-studded  ceilings.  Capacious 
fireplaces  opened  into  chimneys  whose  construction 
was  often  made  a  work  of  art.  Around  the  house- 
door  were  carvings  of  saints  or  devils,  of  prophets, 
hobgoblins  or  grotesque  dragons,  of  birds  and  bees, 
and  any  wild  or  lovely  fancy  that  the  craftsman 
loved  to  perpetuate  in  wood  or  stone.  The  home 
must  be  made  beautiful  as  well  as  the  sanctuary.  In 
those  days  the  mania  of  migration  had  not  yet 
destroyed  the  permanence  and  sacredness  of  the 
homestead.  Where  the  young  man  brought  his 
bride,  even  in  a  city  home,  there  he  hoped  to  dwell 
and  dandle  his  grandchildren  upon  his  knee.  It 
was  Milton's  fate  to  know  many  homes  in  London. 
Discoveries  and  travel  of  the  Elizabethan  period  had 
broken  many  traditions  of  the  past,  and  the  old 
order  in  his  day  was  yielding  to  the  new.  But  half 
the  architecture  of  two  hundred  years  before  him 
still  remained,  and  all  the  traditions  of  the  past  were 
fresh.  The  dingy  and  mutilated  relics  of  the  time 
before  the  Tudors  which,  outside  the  Gothic 
churches,  alone  remain  to  us,  reveal  but  little  of 
what  he  saw. 

With  Henry  VIII.  and  the  widespread  and  thor- 
ough dissolution  of  religious  houses,  London  became 
a  far  more  commercial  and  prosaic  place.  Green 


36  /UMlton's  England 

convent  gardens  were  sold  for  the  erection  of 
narrow  wooden  tenements;  ancient  dormitories, 
refectories,  and  chapels  were  pulled  down  or  trans- 
formed for  more  secular  purposes.  Crutched  Friars' 
Church  became  a  carpenter's  shop  and  tennis  court; 
Shakespeare  and  his  friends  erected  a  playhouse  on 
the  site  of  the  Black  Friars'  monastery.  A  tavern 
replaced  the  church  of  St.  Martin's  le  Grand,  and 
far  and  wide  traces  of  the  despoiler  and  rebuilder 
were  manifest. 

Stow  had  then  but  just  written  his  invaluable 
chronicles,  and  little  antiquarian  interest  prevailed. 
For  the  first  time  in  human  history  men  sailed 
around  the  globe.  New  worlds  were  opening  to 
men's  visions.  Not  only  dreams  of  wealth  without 
labour,  but  golden  actualities  had  dazzled  the  imagi- 
nation of  thousands.  Drake  and  Hawkins,  Fro- 
bisher  and  Raleigh  were  adding  new  lustre  to  an 
age  hitherto  unparalleled  in  prosperity  and  enter- 
prise. Emerson's  description  of  the  Englishman  as 
having  a  "  telescopic  appreciation  of  distant  gain  " 
was  exemplified. 

England  was  rich  in  poets,  great  even  in  Shake- 
speare's time.  Of  two  hundred  and  forty  who  pub- 
lished verses,  forty  are  remembered  to-day.  Yet 
of  England's  six  million  people,  half  could  not  read 
at  all.  Never  was  there  among  people  of  privilege 


flDUton's  England  37 

such  a  proportion  of  accomplished  men.  Every  man 
tried  his  hand  at  verses,  and  learned  to  sing  a  madri- 
gal, and  tinkle  the  accompaniment  with  his  own 
fingers.  Gentlemen  travelled  to  Italy  and  brought 
back  or  made  themselves  translations  of  Boccaccio, 
Ariosto,  Tasso.  Not  only  learned  ladies  like  Queen 
Elizabeth,  who  had  had  Roger  Ascham  for  instruc- 
tor, wrote  Latin,  but  many  others  were  accomplished 
in  those  severer  studies  which  ladies  in  a  later  age 
neglected. 

Sir  Walter  Besant  tells  us  that  from  Henry  IV. 
to  Henry  VIII.  herbs,  fruits,  and  roots  were  scarcely 
used.  At  this  period,  however,  the  poor  again  began 
to  consume  melons,  radishes,  cucumbers,  parsley, 
carrots,  turnips,  salad  herbs,  and  these  things  as 
well  graced  the  tables  of  the  gentry.  Potatoes  were 
unknown  until  a  much  later  time.  Much  meat  was 
eaten,  and  in  different  fashion  from  our  own,  e.  g., 
honey  was  poured  over  mutton.  Tobacco  cost 
eighteen  shillings  a  pound,  and  King  James  com- 
plained that  there  were  those  who  "  spent  £300  a 
year  upon  this  noxious  weed."  No  vital  statistics 
existed  to  show  the  average  of  longevity.  But  cer- 
tain it  is  that,  with  modern  sanitation  and  cleanli- 
ness, the  great  modern  London,  which  to-day  houses 
about  as  many  souls  as  did  all  England  then,  has 
a  much  lower  death-rate.  When  one  remembers 


38  flMlton's  England 

that,  spite  of  stupendous  intellectual  attainments,  of 
exquisite  taste  in  art  and  literature,  spite  of  wise 
statesmanship  and  all  manly  virtues,  the  wise  men 
of  that  day  were  children  in  their  knowledge  of 
chemistry  and  medicine,  we  cannot  wonder  at  the 
recurrence  of  the  plague  in  almost  every  generation. 

In  1605  the  bills  of  mortality  included  the  ninety- 
seven  parishes  within  the  walls,  sixteen  parishes 
without  the  walls,  and  six  contiguous  outparishes  in 
Middlesex  and  Surrey.  During  Milton's  lifetime, 
they  included  the  city  of  Westminster  and  the  par- 
ishes of  Islington,  Lambeth,  Stepney,  Newington, 
Hackney,  and  Redriff.  Scarlet  fever  was  formerly 
confounded  with  measles,  and  does  not  appear  to  be 
reported  as  a  separate  disease  until  1703. 

In  1682  Sir  William  Petty,  speaking  of  the  five 
plagues  that  had  visited  London  in  the  preceding 
hundred  years,  remarks :  "  It  is  to  be  remembered 
the  plagues  of  London  do  commonly  kill  one-fifth 
of  the  inhabitants,  and  are  the  chief  impediment 
against  the  growth  of  the  city." 

In  Milton's  boyhood  common  folk  were  crowded 
into  such  narrow,  wooden  tenements  as  one  may  still 
see  within  the  enclosure  of  St.  Giles's  Church,  Crip- 
plegate,  —  almost  the  only  ones  that  still  remain 
within  the  city.  There  were  no  sewers  and  no  ade- 
quate pavement  until  1616.  House  refuse  was  not 


flDilton's  Bnglaufc  39 

infrequently  thrown  into  the  street,  and  sometimes 
upon  the  heads  of  passers-by,  though  ancient  laws 
enjoined  each  man  to  keep  the  front  of  his  house 
clean  and  to  throw  no  refuse  into  the  gutter.  In 
short,  ideas  on  sanitation  in  London  were  much  like 
those  in  Havana  before  the  summer  of  1898. 

It  is  difficult  to  obtain  accurate  statistics  of  the 
population  of  London,  but  Loftie  estimates  that  in 
1636  seven  hundred  thousand  people  lived  "  within 
its  liberties." 

Where  now  lofty,  gray  stone  buildings  of  pre- 
tentious and  nondescript  architecture  shelter  banks 
and  offices,  gabled  buildings  with  overlapping  stories 
darkened  the  streets.  The  city  was  not  dependent 
on  the  suburbs  or  upon  other  towns  for  aught  but 
food  and  raw  material.  Wool  and  silk  and  linen, 
leather  and  all  metals  were  wrought  close  to  the 
shops  where  they  were  sold.  The  odours  of  glue 
and  dyestuffs  tainted  the  fresh  air.  The  sound  of 
tools  and  hammers,  and  of  the  simple  looms  and 
machinery  of  the  day,  worked  by  foot  or  hand  power, 
were  heard. 

New  objects  of  luxury  began  to  be  manufactured 
—  fans,  ladies'  wigs,  fine  knives,  pins,  needles, 
earthen  fire-pots,  silk  and  crystal  buttons,  shoe- 
buckles,  glassware,  nails,  and  paper.  New  products 
from  foreign  lands  were  introduced  and  naturalised 


40  flMlton's 

—  among  them,  turkeys,  hops,  and  apricots.  Forks 
had  not  yet  appeared  as  a  necessary  table  furnishing. 
Kissing  was  a  universal  custom,  and  a  guest  kissed 
his  hostess  and  all  ladies  present. 

Though  in  the  time  of  Milton's  father  the  ameni- 
ties of  life  had  much  increased,  cruelty  and  severe 
punishments  were  more  frequent  than  in  an  earlier 
age.  Three-fourths  of  all  the  heretics  burned  at 
the  stake  in  England  suffered  in  those  five  years 
of  the  bloody  queen  who,  with  her  Spanish  husband 
at  her  court,  ruled  from  1553  to  1558  over  unhappy 
England.  Many  a  time  must  the  boy  Milton  have 
heard  blood-curdling  tales  from  aged  men  of  these 
ghastly  days  when  Ridley,  Cranmer,  Hooper,  and 
John  Rogers  withered  in  the  flames.  His  own 
father  may  have  seen  the  later  martyrdoms  of  Roman 
Catholics  in  Elizabeth's  reign,  or  of  that  Unitarian 
in  1585  who  suffered  at  the  stake  for  the  denial  of 
the  divinity  of  Christ  —  a  theological  view  with 
which  Milton  himself  is  shown  to  have  had  much 
sympathy. 

The  historian  tells  us  of  men  boiled  and  women 
burned  for  poisoning;  of  ears  nailed  to  the  pillory 
and  sliced  off  for  libellous  and  incendiary  language. 
We  read  of  frightful  floggings  through  the  streets 
and  of  an  enormous  number  of  men  hanged.  Many 
rogues  escaped  punishment  altogether,  for,  though 


flDUton's  BnQlanfc  41 


punishment  when  it  came  was  terrifically  out  of 
proportion  to  the  offence,  and  in  its  publicity  incited 
by  suggestion  to  more  crime,  the  law  was  often 
laxly  administered. 

All  periods  are  more  or  less  transitional,  but  the 
England  into  which  Milton  came  in  the  first  years 
of  the  seventeenth  century  was  peculiarly  in  a  state 
of  transformation  and  unsettlement.  As  in  the  be- 
ginning of  the  twentieth  century,  men's  minds  were 
receiving  radical,  new  impressions,  and  had  not  yet 
assimilated  or  comprehended  them.  The  doctrines 
of  religious  and  political  freedom  were  the  dreams 
of  prophets,  and  were  yet  to  be  conceived  a  possi- 
bility by  the  masses,  who  through  dumb  centuries 
had  toiled  and  laughed  and  wept,  and  then  stretched 
themselves  in  mother  earth  and  slept  among  their 
fathers.  The  tender,  growing  shoots  which  in  the 
days  of  Wiclif  had  sprung  from  the  seed,  small  as  a 
mustard  seed,  which  he  had  planted,  had  grown. 
Birds  now  lodged  among  its  branches.  The  time 
was  ripening  when,  with  the  axe  and  hammer  of 
Milton  and  his  mighty  compeers,  some  of  its  timbers 
should  help  rear  a  new  structure  for  church  and 
state;  and  others  should  be  driven  deep  under  the 
foundations  of  the  temple  which  men  of  English 
blood  should  in  the  future  rear  to  democracy. 


CHAPTER    II. 
MILTON'S  LIFE  ON  BREAD  STREET 

DIRECTLY  under  the  shadow  of  St.  Mary 
le  Bow  Church,  and  almost  within  bow- 
shot of  old  St.  Paul's,  in  a  little  court  off 
Bread  Street,  three  doors  from  Cheapside,  John 
Milton,  the  son  of  John  Milton,  scrivener,  was  born, 
December  gth  in  1608.  The  house  was  marked  by 
the  sign  of  a  spread  eagle,  probably  adopted  from 
the  armorial  bearings  of  the  family,  which  appear 
on  the  original  agreement  for  the  publication  of 
"  Paradise  Lost."  John  Milton,  scrivener,  whose 
business  was  much  like  that  of  the  modern  attorney, 
was  the  son  of  a  well-to-do  Catholic  yeoman  of 
Oxfordshire,  and  is  said  to  have  studied  for  a  time 
at  Christ  Church,  Oxford.  Certain  it  is  that  he 
turned  Protestant,  was  cast  off  by  his  father,  and 
in  Elizabeth's  reign  settled  in  London;  by  1600, 
when  he  married  his  wife  Sarah,  the  worldly  goods 
with  which  he  her  endowed  in  the  church  of  All 
Hallows,  Bread  Street,  included  two  houses  on  that 

street,  besides  others  elsewhere. 

42 


flDUton's  EnQlanfc  43 


We  know  little  of  Milton's  mother,  except  that 
she  was  a  woman  of  a  warm  heart  and  generous 
hand,  and  had  weak  eyes  which  compelled  her  to 
wear  spectacles  before  she  was  thirty,  while  her 
husband  read  without  them  at  the  age  of  eighty- 
four.  Three  of  their  six  little  ones  died  in  baby- 
hood, but  the  little  John's  elder  sister,  Anne,  and 
younger  brother,  Christopher,  grew  with  him  to 
middle  life. 

It  was  a  musical  household;  an  organ  and  other 
instruments  were  part  of  the  possessions  most 
highly  prized  in  the  Bread  Street  home.  The  little 
lad  must  have  looked  with  pride  at  the  gold  chain 
and  medal  presented  to  his  father  by  a  Polish  prince 
for  a  composition  in  forty  parts  which  the  former 
had  written  for  him.  Many  chimes  in  country 
churches  played  the  psalm  tunes  that  he  had  har- 
monised. To  this  day  a  madrigal  and  other  songs 
of  his  are  known  to  music  lovers.  No  wonder  that 
the  boy  reared  in  this  home  was  ever  a  lover  of 
sweet  sounds,  and  learned  to  evoke  them  with  his 
own  little  ringers  upon  the  organ  keyboard. 

The  Bread  Street  of  Milton's  day,  though  swept 
over  by  the  Great  Fire,  was  not  obliterated,  and 
still  covers  its  old  site.  Just  at  the  head  of  it,  on 
Cheapside,  stood  the  "  Standard  in  Cheap  "  —  an 
ancient  monument  in  hexagonal  shape,  with  sculp- 


44  /IDilton's  England 

tures  on  each  side,  and  on  the  top  the  figure  of  a  man 
blowing  a  horn.  Here  Wat  Tyler  and  Jack  Cade 
had  beheaded  prisoners.  A  little  west  was  the 
Gothic  Cross  in  Cheap,  one  of  the  nine  crosses 
erected  in  memory  of  Queen  Eleanor,  somewhat 
similar  to  the  modern  one  at  Charing  Cross. 

Only  a  few  steps  from  his  father's  house  the 
little  John  found  himself  in  the  thickest  traffic  and 
bustle  of  the  city.  Here  were  mercers'  and  gold- 
smiths' shops,  and  much  coming  and  going  of  carts, 
and  occasionally  coaches,  which,  as  the  antiquarian 
Stow  declared,  "  were  running  on  wheels  with  many 
whose  parents  had  been  glad  to  go  on  foot,"  for 
coaches  were  but  newly  come  into  fashion.  As  the 
little  lad  stood  at  the  street  corner  looking  east  and 
west  along  Cheapside, —  the  ancient  market-place,— 
his  eye  fell  on  well-built  houses  three  and  four  stories 
high;  they  were  turned  gable  end  to  the  street, 
were  built  of  timber,  brick,  and  plaster,  and  had 
projecting  upper  stories  of  woodwork.  Stow  de- 
scribes a  row  built  by  Thomas  Wood,  goldsmith, 
of  "  fair  large  houses,  for  the  most  part  possessed 
of  mercers,"  and  westward,  beginning  at  Bread 
Street,  "  the  most  beautiful  frame  of  fair  houses 
and  shops  that  be  within  the  walls  of  London  or 
elsewhere  in  England.  It  containeth  in  number  ten 
fair  dwelling-houses  and  fourteen  shops,  all  in  one 


45 

frame,  uniformly  builded,  four  stories  high,  beau- 
tified toward  the  street  with  the  goldsmiths'  arms 
and  the  likeness  of  woodmen,  in  memory  of  his 
name,  riding  on  monstrous  beasts;  all  of  which  is 
cast  in  lead,  richly  painted  over  and  gilt." 

The  modern  visitor,  as  he  turns  from  the  jostling 
crowds  of  Cheapside  into  Bread  Street,  which  is 
scarcely  wider  than  a  good  sidewalk,  will  find  no 
trace  of  aught  that  Milton  saw.  The  present  mer- 
cantile establishment,  at  numbers  58-63,  that  covers 
the  site  of  his  house,  covers  as  well  the  whole  Spread 
Eagle  Court,  in  which  it  stood.  It  bears  no  inscrip- 
tion, but,  if  one  enters,  the  courteous  proprietor  may 
conduct  him  to  the  second  story  where  a  bust  of 
Milton  is  placed  over  the  spot  where  he  was  born. 

A  little  farther  south,  on  the  corner  of  Watling 
Street,  is  the  site  of  All  Hallows  Church,  where 
Milton  was  baptised,  and  which  is  marked  by  a 
gray  stone  bust  of  the  poet  and  the  inscription : 

"  MILTON 
BORN  IN  BREAD  STREET 

1608 

BAPTISED  IN  CHURCH  OF  ALL  HALLOWS 

WHICH  STOOD  HERE  ANTE 

1878." 

The  register  of  his  baptism  referred  to  him  as 
"  John,  sonne  of  John  Mylton,  Scrivener." 


46  flDUton's 

Here  the  Milton  family  sat  every  Sunday  and 
listened  to  the  sermons  of  Reverend  Richard  Stocke, 
a  zealous  Puritan  and  most  respected  man,  who  is 
said  to  have  had  the  gift  of  influencing  young  people. 

Further  south,  on  the  same  side  as  All  Hallows, 
were  "  six  almshouses  builded  for  poor  decayed 
brethren  of  the  Salter's  Company,"  and  beyond  this 
the  church  of  St.  Mildred,  the  Virgin.  Upon  cross- 
ing Basing  Lane,  Milton  saw  the  most  noted  house 
upon  the  street,  known  as  "  Gerrard  Hall."  This 
was  an  antique  structure  "  built  upon  arched  vaults 
and  with  arched  gates  of  stone  brought  from  Caen 
in  Normandy,"  as  Stow  relates.  A  giant  is  said 
to  have  lived  here,  and  the  large  fir  pole  in  the  high 
hall,  which  reached  to  the  roof,  was  said  to  have 
been  his  staff.  Stow  thought  it  worth  while  to 
measure  it,  and  declares  it  was  fifteen  inches  in  cir- 
cumference. Small  boys  in  Bread  Street  may  well 
have  stood  in  awe  of  such  a  cane. 

Whether  the  famous  "  Mermaid  "  Tavern  was  in 
Bread  or  Friday  Street  or  between  them  seems 
doubtful,  but  Ben  Jonson's  lines  plainly  indicate 
Bread  Street: 

"  At  Bread-street's  Mermaid  having  dined  and  merry, 
Proposed  to  go  to  Holborn  in  a  wherry." 

As  Milton  was  early  destined  for  the  Church, 
his  unusually  thoughtful  disposition  and  quick  per- 


OLD    ST.    PAUL'S    CATHEDRAL 
The  two  upper  views  show  the  porch  by  Inigo  Jones.     The  two  lower 


views  show  the 
the  church. 


Lesser  Cloisters."     Milton's  -school  stood  at  the  rear  of 
From  an  old  engraving. 


flDUton's  Enalanfc  47 

ception  must  have  given  promise  of  his  fulfillment 
of  his  father's  hope.  At  the  age  of  ten  he  was 
writing  verses.  At  this  time,  a  Dutch  painter, 
Jansen,  reputed  to  be  "  equal  to  Van  Dyck  in  all 
except  freedom  of  hand  and  grace,"  was  employed 
to  paint  the  scrivener's  little  son,  as  well  as  James  I. 
and  his  children  and  various  noblemen. 

This  portrait  shows  us  a  sweet- faced,  sober  little 
Puritan  in  short-cropped  auburn  hair,  wearing  a 
broad  lace  frill  about  his  neck,  and  an  elaborately 
braided  jacket.  This  portrait  is  now  in  private 
hands,  from  whence  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  it  will 
some  day  find  its  way  to  the  National  Portrait  Gal- 
lery, and  be  placed  beside  the  striking  and  noble 
likeness  of  the  poet  in  middle  life. 

The  lines  which  were  written  beneath  the  first 
engraving  of  it  may  have  been  the  poet's  own : 

"  When  I  was  yet  a  child,  no  childish  play 
To  me  was  pleasing ;  all  my  mind  was  set 
Serious  to  learn  and  know,  and  thence  to  do 
What  might  be  public  good ;  myself  I  thought 
Born  to  that  end,  born  to  promote  all  truth 
And  righteous  things." 

Milton  appears  to  have  been  very  fond  of  his 
preceptor,  a  Scotch  Puritan  named  Young.  He 
seems  to  have  well  grounded  the  lad  in  Latin, 
aroused  in  him  a  love  of  poetry,  and  set  him  to 


4»  flDUton's  EttQlant) 

making  English  and  Latin  verses.  But  the  little 
John  must  go  to  school  with  other  boys;  and  what 
more  natural  than  that  the  famous  St.  Paul's 
School,  within  five  minutes'  walk,  should  have  been 
selected  ? 

When  Milton  went  to  school  in  1620,  St.  Paul's 
Cathedral  was  become  old  and  much  in  need  of 
restoration.  It  had  been  built  on  the  site  of  an  older 
church  and  was  in  process  of  erection  and  alteration 
from  about  1090  to  1512,  when  its  new  wooden 
steeple,  covered  with  lead,  was  completed.  Its  cross 
was  estimated  later  by  Wren  to  have  been  at  least  460 
feet  from  the  ground.  This  had  disappeared  in  a 
fire  in  1561,  and  none  replaced  it.  What  Milton 
saw  was  a  huge  edifice,  chiefly  Gothic,  with  a 
central  tower  about  260  feet  high.  The  classical 
porch  by  Inigo  Jones  was  not  added,  neither  were 
certain  buildings  which  abutted  the  nave  torn  down 
until  after  Milton's  school-days  were  over.  On 
the  east  end,  next  his  schoolhouse,  was  a  great 
window  thirty-seven  feet  high,  above  which  was  a 
circular  rose  window.  The  choir  stretched  west- 
ward 224  feet,  which,  with  the  nave,  made  the  entire 
length  580  feet.  When  Jones's  portico  was  added, 
its  whole  length  was  620  feet.  The  area  which  it 
covered  was  82,000  feet,  and  it  was  by  far  the  larg- 
est cathedral  in  all  England.  Upon  the  southwest 


flDUton's  England  49 


corner  was  a  tower  once  used  as  a  prison,  and  also 
as  a  bell  and  clock  tower.  This  was  the  real 
Lollards'  tower,  rather  than  the  one  at  Lambeth 
which  is  so  called.  The  northwest  tower  was  like- 
wise a  prison.  The  nave  was  of  transitional  Nor- 
man design,  of  twelve  bays  in  length,  and  with 
triforium  and  clerestory.  For  many  decades  a 
large  part  of  the  cathedral  was  desecrated  by  a 
throng  of  hucksters,  idlers,  and  fops. 

Ben  Jonson  makes  constant  allusion  to  "  Paul's." 
Here  he  studied  the  extravagant  costumes  of  the 
day.  According  to  Dekker,  the  tailors  frequented 
its  aisles  to  catch  the  newest  fashions  :  "If  you 
determine  to  enter  into  a  new  suit,  warn  your  tailor 
to  attend  you  in  Paul's,  who  with  his  hat  in  his 
hand,  shall  like  a  spy  discover  the  stuff,  colour,  and 
fashion  of  any  doublet  or  hose  that  dare  be  seen 
there  ;  and  stepping  behind  a  pillar  to  fill  his  table- 
book  with  those  notes,  will  presently  send  you  into 
the  world  an  accomplished  man." 

Bishop  Earle,  writing  when  Milton  was  twenty 
years  of  age,  describes  St.  Paul's  as  follows  :  "  It  is 
a  heap  of  stones  and  men  with  a  vast  confusion  of 
languages;  and  were  the  steeple  not  sanctified, 
nothing  liker  Babel.  The  noise  in  it  is  like  that 
of  bees  mixed  of  walking  tongues  and  feet.  It  is 
the  exchange  of  all  discourse,  and  no  business  what- 


50  rtMlton's  England 

soever  but  is  here  stirring  and  afoot.  It  is  the  market 
of  young  lecturers,  whom  you  may  cheapen  here  at 
all  rates  and  sizes.  All  inventions  are  emptied  here, 
and  not  few  pockets.  The  best  sign  of  a  temple  in 
it  is  that  it  is  the  thieves'  sanctuary." 

Well  may  John  Milton  senior  have  cautioned  his 
young  son  not  to  tarry  in  "  Duke  Humphrey's 
Walk,"  as  this  scene  of  confusion  was  called,  on  his 
way  home  from  school,  though  he  may  well  have 
taken  him  to  inspect  the  lofty  tomb  of  Dean  Colet 
or  the  monuments  to  John  of  Gaunt  and  Duke 
Humphrey  and  the  shrine  of  St.  Erkenwald, 
which  was  behind  the  high  altar.  As  a  man,  in 
later  years,  Milton  may  have  walked  down  from 
Aldersgate  on  a  December  in  1641  and  attended  the 
funeral  of  the  great  painter,  Sir  Anthony  Van 
Dyck,  who  for  nine  years  had  made  his  residence 
in  England,  and  was  buried  here. 

In  a  corner  of  the  churchyard  stood  a  covered 
pulpit  surmounted  by  a  cross,  where  in  ancient  times 
the  folkmote  of  the  citizens  was  held.  For  centuries 
before  Milton,  this  was  a  famous  spot  for  outdoor 
sermons  and  proclamations.  Here  the  captured 
flags  from  the  Armada  had  waved  above  the 
preacher.  But  in  1629,  when  Milton  was  in  Cam- 
bridge, Oliver  Cromwell,  in  his  maiden  speech  in 
Parliament,  declared  that  flat  popery  was  being 


AUton's  Englanfc  S1 

preached  at  Paul's  Cross.  When  Cromwell's  day 
of  power  was  come,  and  the  cathedral  during  the 
war  was  sometimes  used  to  stable  horses,  Paul's 
Cross  was  swept  away,  and  its  leaden  roof  melted 
into  bullets.  Before  that,  in  1633,  preaching  had 
been  removed  from  there  into  the  choir. 

Of  the  architecture  of  the  bishop's  palace,  which 
stood  at  the  northeast  of  the  cathedral,  we  know 
nothing,  but  we  know  that  it  existed  in  Milton's 
school-days.  Adjoining  the  palace  was  a  "  Haw," 
or  small  enclosure  surrounded  by  a  cloister,  filled 
with  tombs,  and  upon  the  walls  was  a  grisly  picture 
of  the  Dance  of  Death.  Death  was  represented  by 
a  skeleton,  who  led  the  Pope,  and  emperor,  and 
a  procession  of  men  of  all  conditions.  In  brief, 
the  little  "  Haw  "  was  a  small  edition  of  the  Pisan 
Campo  Santo. 

At  the  east  end  of  the  churchyard  stood  the 
Bell  Tower,  surmounted  by  a  spire  covered  with  lead 
and  bearing  a  statue  of  St.  Paul.  The  cloister  of 
the  Chapter  House  or  Convocation  House  hid  the 
west  wall  of  the  south  transept  and  part  of  the  nave. 
It  was,  unlike  most  structures  of  that  character, 
two  stories  in  height,  and  formed  a  square  of  some 
ninety  feet,  which  was  called  the  "  Lesser  Cloisters," 
doubtless  to  distinguish  it  from  the  other  cloisters 
in  the  "  Haw."  During  his  most  impressionable 


52  flMlton's  Bnglanfc 

years,  the  city  boy  John  Milton  could  not  have 
stirred  from  home  without  being  confronted  by 
majestic  symbols  of  the  Christian  faith,  and  mighty 
structures  already  venerable  with  age,  and  rich  in 
treasures  of  a  great  historic  past.  Religion  and 
beauty  played  as  large  a  part  in  the  influences  that 
moulded  the  life  of  his  young  contemporaries  as 
science  and  athletics  do  in  the  life  of  every  American 
boy  to-day.  Whatever  faults  the  methods  of  educa- 
tion in  Milton's  age  may  be  accused  of,  it  can  not 
be  denied  that  they  developed  industry,  reverence, 
and  moral  courage  —  three  qualities  which  with  all 
our  child  study  and  pedagogical  improvements  are 
perhaps  less  common  to-day  than  they  were  then. 
About  the  year  1620,  when  William  Bradford 
was  writing  his  famous  journal,  and  John  Carver 
and  F.dward  Winslow  were  sailing  with  him  in  the 
Mayflower,  when  Doctor  Harvey  had  told  Lon- 
don folk  that  man's  blood  circulates,  and  many 
new  things  were  being  noised  abroad,  twelve-year- 
old  John  Milton  first  went  to  school.  His  school 
had  been  founded  in  1512  by  Dean  Colet,  whose 
great  tomb,  just  mentioned,  was  but  a  stone's  throw 
distant.  It  was  a  famous  school.  Ben  Jonson  and 
the  famous  Camden  had  studied  there,  and  learned 
Latin  and  Greek,  the  catechism,  and  good  manners. 
There  were  153  boys  in  all;  the  number  prescribed 


/IMlton's  Bnglanfc  53 

had  reference,  curiously,  to  the  number  of  fishes  in 
Simon  Peter's  miraculous  draught.  Over  the  win- 
dows were  inscribed  the  words  in  large  capital  let- 
ters :  "  Schola  Catechizationis  Puerorum  In  Christi 
Opt.  Max.  Fide  Et  Bonis  Literis.  On  entering,  the 
pupils  were  confronted  by  the  motto  painted  on 
each  window  :  "  Aut  Doce,  Aut  Disce,  Aut  Discede  " 
—  either  teach  or  learn  or  leave  the  place.  There 
were  two  rooms,  one  called  the  vestibulum,  for  the 
little  boys,  where  also  instruction  was  given  in 
Christian  manners.  In  the  main  schoolroom  the 
master  sat  at  the  further  end  upon  his  imposing 
chair  of  office  called  a  cathedra,  and  under  a  bust  of 
Colet  said  to  have  been  a  work  of  "  exquisite  art." 
Stow  tells  us  that  somewhat  before  Milton's  time 
the  master's  wages  were  a  mark  a  week  and  a 
livery  gown  of  four  nobles  delivered  in  cloth;  his 
lodgings  were  free.  The  sub-master  received 
weekly  six  shillings,  eight  pence,  and  was  given 
his  gown.  Children  of  every  nationality  were  eligi- 
ble; on  admission  they  passed  an  examination  in 
reading,  writing,  and  the  catechism,  and  paid  four 
pence,  which  went  to  the  poor  scholar  who  swept 
the  school.  The  eight  classes  included  boys  from 
eight  to  eighteen  years  of  age,  though  the  curriculum 
of  the  school  extended  over  only  six  years.  Milton's 
master  was  Doctor  Alexander  Gill,  who  from  1608- 


54  Hilton's 

1635  held  the  mastership  of  St.  Paul's  School.  A 
progressive  man  was  this  same  reverend  gentleman 
—  a  great  believer  in  his  native  English  and  in 
spelling  reform.  Speaking  of  Latin,  this  remark- 
able Latin  master  said :  "  We  may  have  the  same 
treasure  in  our  own  tongue.  I  love  Rome,  but 
London  better.  I  favour  Italy,  but  England  more. 
I  honour  the  Latin,  but  worship  the  English."  He 
was  also  an  advocate  of  the  retention  of  good  old 
Saxon  words  as  against  the  invasion  of  Latinised 
ones.  "  But  whither,"  he  writes,  "  have  you  ban- 
ished those  words  which  our  forefathers  used  for 
these  new-fangled  ones?  Are  our  words  to  be 
exiled  like  our  citizens?  O  ye  Englishmen,  retain 
what  yet  remains  of  our  native  speech !  "  Under 
Mr.  Gill's  instruction,  and  that  of  his  son,  who  was 
usher,  Milton  spent  about  four  years  of  strenuous 
study.  So  great  was  his  ambition  for  learning 
during  the  years  when  most  boys  find  school  hours 
alone  irksome  enough  that  he  says :  "  My  father 
destined  me  when  a  little  boy  for  the  study  of 
humane  letters,  which  I  seized  with  such  eagerness 
that  from  the  twelfth  year  of  my  age  I  scarcely 
ever  went  from  my  lessons  to  bed  before  mid- 
night; which  indeed  was  the  first  cause  of  injury 
to  my  eyes,  to  whose  natural  weakness  there  were 
also  added  frequent  headaches."  Philips  writes: 


UEAN    COLET,    THE    FOUNDER    OF    ST.    PAUL'S    SCHOOL 
From  a  plaster  cast  of  tlie  group  sculptured  by  Hamo  Thorny  croft. 


fl&Uton's  Enalanfc  ss 


"  He  generally  sat  up  half  the  night  as  well  in 
voluntary  improvements  of  his  own  choice  as  the 
exact  perfecting  of  his  school  exercises;  so  that  at 
the  age  of  fifteen  he  was  full  ripe  for  academical 
training."  During  these  years  the  boy  probably 
learned  French  and  Italian,  as  well  as  made  a  begin- 
ning in  Hebrew. 

It  was  in  his  last  year  at  school  that  he  para- 
phrased the  ninety-fourth  Psalm,  beginning: 

"  When  the  blest  seed  of  Terah's  faithful  son 
After  long  toil  their  liberty  had  won, 
And  passed  from  Pharian  fields  to  Canaan's  land 
Led  by  the  strength  of  the  Almighty's  hand, 
Jehovah's  wonders  were  in  Israel  shown, 
His  praise  and  glory  were  in  Israel  known." 

Likewise  Psalm  one  hundred  and  thirty-six,  be- 
ginning : 

"  Let  us  with  a  gladsome  mind 

Praise  the  Lord,  for  he  is  kind  : 

For  his  mercies  aye  endure, 

Ever  faithful,  ever  sure." 

The  present  St.  Paul's  School  is  now  splendidly 
housed  in  a  great  establishment  in  Hammersmith. 
But  Milton's  school  and  the  one  which  arose  on 
its  ashes  after  the  Great  Fire  are  remembered  by 
the  following  inscription  :  "  On  this  site,  A.  D.  1512 
to  A.  D.  1884,  stood  St.  Paul's  School,  founded  by 


5*  /IMlton's 

Dr.  John  Colet,  Dean  of  St.  Paul's."  From  the 
studio  of  Mr.  Hamo  Thornycroft  at  Kensington, 
whence  came  the  heroic  figures  of  Cromwell  at 
Westminster  and  King  Alfred  at  Winchester,  St. 
Paul's  School  is  to  receive  a  noble  statue  of  the 
great  scholar. 


CHAPTER    III. 

MILTON    AT    CAMBRIDGE 

iHE  schoolmate  whom  Milton  most  loved 
was  a  physician's  son,   Charles  Diodati, 
almost  exactly  his  own  age,  who  went  to 
Cambridge  a  little  in  advance  of  him. 

After  his  sister,  who  was  then  eighteen  years  old, 
had  been  wooed  and  won  by  Mr.  Philips,  and  had 
made  the  first  break  in  the  home  on  Spread  Eagle 
Court,  Milton,  now  sixteen  years  old,  followed  his 
friend  to  Cambridge.  Doubtless  he  rode  on  the 
coach,  which  every  week  the  hale  old  stage-coach 
driver  —  Hobson  —  drove  from  the  Bull's  Inn  on 
Bishopsgate  Street.  A  well-to-do  man  was  this 
worthy,  who,  in  spite  of  eighty  winters,  still  cracked 
his  whip  behind  his  span,  and  kept  forty  horses  in 
his  livery  stable.  Milton  took  a  great  fancy  to 
him.  He  soon  learned,  as  did  every  young  gentle- 
man intent  on  hiring  a  nag,  that  "  Hobson's  choice  " 
meant  taking  the  horse  that  stood  nearest  the  stable 
door.  Hobson  is  said  to  have  been  the  first  man 
in  England  to  let  out  hackney-coaches.  The  modern 

57 


58  flDUton's  Englaufc 

visitor  to  the  university  town  finds  the  old  carrier 
honoured  by  a  memorial;  for  he  became  a  public 
benefactor,  and  among  many  generous  gifts  be- 
queathed a  sum  that  to  this  day  provides  for  a 
fine  conduit  and  for  the  runnels  of  sparkling  water 
that  flow  along  the  streets  and  around  the  town.1 
Under  the  mastership  of  Doctor  Thomas  Bain- 
brigge,  Milton  became  a  "  lesser  pensioner "  in 
February,  1624,  at  Christ's  College.  Students  were 
classified  according  to  social  rank  and  ability  to 
pay,  and  Milton  stood  above  the  poorer  students, 
called  "  sizars,"  who  had  inferior  accommodation ; 
he  probably  paid  about  £50  a  year  for  his 
1  ONE  OF  MILTON'S  TWO  EPITAPHS  ON  HOBSON 

"  Here  lies  old  Hobson.     Death  hath  broke  his  girt, 
And  here,  alas,  hath  laid  him  in  the  dirt ; 
Or  else,  the  ways  being  foul,  twenty  to  one, 
He's  here  stuck  in  a  slough,  or  overthrown. 
'Twas  such  a  shifter,  that  if  truth  were  known, 
Death  was  half  glad  when  he  had  got  him  down ; 
For  he  had  any  time  these  ten  years  full, 
Dodged  with  him,  betwixt  Cambridge  and  the  '  Bull,' 
And  surely  death  could  never  have  prevailed, 
Had  not  his  weekly  course  of  carriage  failed. 
But  lately  finding  him  so  long  at  home, 
And  thinking  now  his  journey's  end  was  come, 
And  that  he  had  ta'en  up  his  latest  inn, 
In  the  kind  office  of  a  chamberlain, 
Showed  him  his  room,  where  he  must  lodge  that  night, 
Pulled  off  his  boots  and  took  away  the  light ; 
If  any  ask  for  him,  it  shall  be  said, 

«  Hobson  has  supt  and's  newly  gone  to  bed.' " 


3  1 

c  < 
o    * 


a   s 


flDilton's  Englanfc  59 

maintenance.  Christ's  College,  as  regards  numbers, 
then  stood  nearly  at  the  head  of  the  sixteen  col- 
leges and  had  one  master,  thirteen  fellows,  and 
fifty-five  scholars,  which,  together  with  students, 
made  the  number  two  hundred  and  sixty,  about  the 
same  that  it  has  to-day.  It  stands  between  Sidney 
Sussex  College  and  Emmanuel.  In  the  former, 
Cromwell  studied,  from  April,  1616,  to  July,  1617, 
and  the  room  with  its  bay  window  and  deep 
window-seats  and  little  bedroom  opening  out  of 
it,  which  is  said  to  have  been  his,  may  still 
be  seen  in  the  second  story  of  the  building  next 
to  the  street.  The  window  is  modern.  His  por- 
trait, painted  in  middle  life,  hangs  in  the  dining- 
hall.  Doctor  William  Everett,  in  what  is  the  best 
book  on  life  in  Cambridge,  —  his  "  On  the  Cam,"  — 
thus  sums  up  his  estimate  of  the  Protector :  "  Bigots 
may  defame  him,  tyrants  may  insult  him,  but  when 
the  hosts  of  God  rise  for  their  great  review  and 
the  champions  of  liberty  bear  their  scars,  there  shall 
stand  in  the  foremost  rank,  shining  as  the  brightness 
of  the  firmament,  the  majestic  son  of  Cambridge, 
the  avenger  and  protector,  Oliver  Cromwell."  A 
Royalist  has  written  in  a  note  that  is  appended  to 
Cromwell's  name  in  the  college  books :  "  Hie  fuit 
grandis  ille  impostor  carnifex  perditissimus  ;  "  and 
it  is  as  "  impostor  "  and  "  butcher  "  that  two-thirds 


60  Hilton's 

of  Englishmen  would  have  described  him  before 
Carlyle  resurrected  the  real  man. 

Emmanuel  College  is  preeminently  the  Puritan 
college.  It  is  dear  to  Americans  as  the  one  where 
William  Blackstone,  the  learned  hermit  of  Shawmut, 
John  Harvard,  the  founder  of  Harvard  College, 
and  Henry  Dunster,  its  first  president,  Bradstreet, 
the  colonial  governor,  and  Hugh  Peters,  the  regi- 
cide, who  lived  in  Boston,  once  studied.  Here 
also  Thomas  Hooker,  the  founder  of  Connecticut, 
was  a  student,  and  here  John  Cotton  was  a  fellow. 
This  beloved  preacher  afterward  left  his  ministry 
over  St.  Botolph's  Church  in  Boston,  England,  to 
go  to  the  little  settlement  of  Winthrop's,  which 
had  changed  its  earlier  names  of  "  Shawmut "  and 
"  Trimountaine  "  to  "  Boston  "  before  his  arrival. 
American  tourists,  who  find  their  way  to  the 
spacious  grounds  of  Jesus  College  to  see  the  Burne- 
Jones  and  Morris  windows  in  the  chapel,  will  be 
glad  to  note  that  in  these  stately  halls  John  Eliot 
walked  a  student.  Little  he  then  dreamed  of  his 
future  life  in  wigwams,  a  guest  of  mugwumps,  in 
the  forests  of  Natick,  Massachusetts,  and  of  the 
laborious  years  to  be  spent  in  turning  Hebrew  poetry 
and  history  and  gospel  message  into  their  barbar- 
ous tongue.  Francis  Higginson,  the  minister  to 
Salem,  and  the  ancestor  of  Colonel  Thomas  W. 


rtMlton's  En0la^  61 


Higginson,  studied  here  as  well.  John  Winthrop, 
the  governor  of  the  Massachusetts  colony,  and 
President  Chauncy  of  Harvard  College  studied  at 
Trinity  a  generation  before  Wren  erected  its  great 
library,  and  Isaac  Newton  was  a  student  there. 
John  Norton,  Cotton's  successor  at  the  First  Church, 
Boston,  studied  in  Peterhouse,  the  oldest  of  all  the 
colleges,  and  Roger  Williams,  the  founder  of  Rhode 
Island,  entered  Pembroke  College  the  year  before 
Milton  entered  Christ's.  Whether  the  two,  whose 
lives  were  to  touch  so  closely  later,  knew  each  other 
then  or  not  is  doubtful.  William  Brewster  was  the 
only  man  who  came  in  the  Mayflower  who  had  a 
college  education.  He  too  studied  at  Cambridge; 
and  so  did  John  Robinson,  the  dearly  loved  pastor 
of  the  Pilgrims,  who  remained  with  the  other  Eng- 
lish refugees  at  Leyden. 

It  was  these  men,  with  Shepard,  Saltonstall,  and 
a  score  more  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge  men,  who 
were  the  spiritual  fathers  of  Samuel  Adams,  Warren, 
Otis,  Hancock  ;  of  Jonathan  Edxvards,  Ralph  Waldo 
Emerson,  Channing,  Beecher,  and  Phillips  Brooks; 
of  Lowell,  Longfellow,  Whittier,  Bryant,  Holmes, 
and  Hawthorne  ;  of  Garrison,  Phillips,  and  Sumner  ; 
of  Motley,  Bancroft,  Prescott,  and  John  Fiske. 
The  Cambridge  that  Milton  knew  was  the  mother 
and  the  grandmother  of  the  founders  of  states 


62  /IDilton's 

and  of  the  architects  of  national  constitutions  and 
ideals. 

Though  most  of  the  New  England  Puritan  leaders 
came  from  Cambridge,  Oxford  furnished  several  of 
the  great  Puritans  who  remained  at  home  —  Pym, 
Vane,  John  Eliot,  and  Hampden. 

It  is  estimated  that  nearly  one  hundred  university 
men,  between  1630  and  1647,  left  their  comfortable 
homes  and  the  allurements  that  Oxford,  Cambridge, 
and  the  picturesque  England  of  their  time  presented, 
to  undergo  the  hardships  of  pioneers  in  the  raw 
colony  upon  Massachusetts  Bay.  Of  these,  two- 
thirds  came  from  Cambridge,  a  particularly  large 
proportion  from  Emmanuel  College.  Of  the  forty 
or  fifty  Cambridge  or  Oxford  men  who  were  in 
Massachusetts  in  1639,  one-half  were  within  five 
miles  of  Boston  or  Cambridge.  It  was  this  element 
of  culture  and  character  that  determined  the  history 
of  New  England,  and  forced  its  stony  soil  to  bring 
forth  such  a  crop  of  men  in  the  ages  that  were  to 
come  as  made  New  England,  in  the  words  of  Mau- 
rice, "  the  realisation  in  plain  prose  of  the  dreams 
which  haunted  Milton  his  whole  life  long." 

Sidney  Sussex,  Christ's,  and  Emmanuel  Colleges 
were  erected  during  the  Tudor  period,  Christ's  Col- 
lege, founded  in  1505,  being  the  earliest  of  the  three. 
The  buildings  of  the  latter  now  present  a  more 


•jt, 

a 
a    '^ 

II 


X    Q 
U    U 


flMlton's 

commonplace  appearance  than  when  the  "  Lady  of 
Christ's,"  as  the  students  called  young  Milton, 
walked  among  them  in  his  cap  and  gown.  One  still 
may  climb  the  narrow,  shabby  stairway  to  the  room,, 
with  a  tiny,  irregular  bedroom  and  cupboard,  where 
Milton  lived,  and  which  probably  he  shared  with 
a  roommate.  It  has  no  inscription  or  special  mark, 
and  probably  few  strangers  seek  it  out.  The  visitor 
will  note  its  two  windows  opposite  each  other,  whose 
heavy  window-frames,  with  the  wainscoting  and 
cornice,  bear  mark  of  age. 

No  one,  however,  fails  to  seek  within  the  secluded 
inner  garden  the  decrepit  mulberry-tree,  which  is 
said  to  have  been  planted  by  Milton.  Its  trunk  is 
muffled  high  in  a  mound  of  sod,  and  its  aged  limbs, 
which  still  bear  foliage  and  black  berries,  rest  on 
supports.  High,  sheltering  walls  shut  in  the  exqui- 
site green  lawns  around  it,  and  birds,  blossoms,  and 
trees  make  the  spot  seem  a  paradise  regained. 

Among  the  students  of  Christ's  College,  none  in 
later  years  brought  it  such  renown  as  two  men  of 
widely  differing  types  —  the  authors  of  "  Evidences 
of  Christianity "  and  "  The  Origin  of  Species." 
William  Paley  in  1766,  when  he  was  but  twenty- 
three  years  old,  was  elected  a  fellow,  and  remained 
in  Cambridge  ten  years.  His  famous  work  to-day 
forms  part  of  the  subjects  required  for  the  "  Little 


64  dDUton'0 

Go."  Charles  Robert  Darwin,  the  Copernicus  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  entered  Christ's  with  the  inten- 
tion of  studying  for  the  ministry.  He  left  it  to 
journey  on  the  Beagle  through  the  southern  seas, 
and  to  bring  back  results  which,  with  his  later  study, 
led  to  such  a  revolution  in  human  thought  as  made 
it  only  second  to  that  wrought  in  the  minds  of  men 
who  lived  a  generation  before  Milton  was  born. 

Masson  tells  us  that  in  Milton's  college  days  the 
daily  routine  was  chapel  service  at  five  o'clock  in 
the  morning,  followed  sometimes  by  a  discourse  by 
one  of  the  fellows,  then  breakfasts,  probably  served 
in  the  students'  own  rooms,  as  they  are  to-day. 
This  was  followed  by  the  daily  college  lectures  or 
university  debates,  which  lasted  until  noon,  when 
dinner  was  served  in  the  college  dining-halls ;  there 
the  young  men,  then  as  now,  sat  upon  the  hard, 
backless  benches,  and  drank  their  beer  beneath 
painted  windows  and  portraits,  perchance  by  Hol- 
bein, of  the  eminent  men  who  had  been  their 
predecessors. 

After  dinner,  if  they  supped  at  seven,  and  attended 
evening  service,  they  could  do  much  as  they  pleased 
otherwise.  In  Milton's  day,  the  rule  of  an  earlier 
time,  which  prescribed  that  out  of  their  chambers 
students  should  converse  in  some  dead  language, 
had  been  much  relaxed.  Probably  the  barbarous 


flDUton's  Enalanfc  65 

Latin  and  worse  Greek  and  Hebrew,  which  this  pre- 
scription must  have  caused,  finally  rendered  it  a 
dead  letter.  Smoking  was  a  universal  practice,  and 
boxing  matches,  dancing,  bear  fights,  and  other  for- 
bidden games  were  not  unknown.  Bathing  in  the 
sedgy  little  Cam  was  prohibited,  but  was  neverthe- 
less a  daily  practice. 

In  many  colleges  the  undergraduates  wore  "  new 
fashioned  gowns  of  any  colour  whatsoever,  blue  or 
green,  or  red  or  mixt,  without  any  uniformity  but  in 
hanging  sleeves ;  and  their  other  garments  light  and 
gay,  some  with  boots  and  spurs,  others  with  stock- 
ings of  divers  colours  reversed  one  upon  another." 
Some  had  "  fair  roses  upon  the  shoe,  long  frizzled 
hair  upon  the  head,  broad  spread  bands  upon  their 
shoulders,  and  long,  large  merchants'  ruffs  about 
their  necks,  with  fair  feminine  cuffs  at  the  wrist." 

The  portrait  of  Milton,  which  hangs  in  a  spacious 
apartment  used  by  the  dons  at  Christ's  College, 
shows  him  a  youth  of  rare  beauty,  in  a  rich  and 
tasteful  costume  with  broad  lace  collar.  He  holds  a 
gilt-edged  volume  in  his  hand,  and  has  the  mien 
of  a  refined  and  elegant  scholar,  but  not  effeminate 
withal,  for  he  was  used  to  daily  sword  practice. 

Corporal  punishment  was  then  still  in  vogue,  and 
delinquents  under  eighteen  years  old  were  not 
infrequently  chastised  in  public.  In  fact,  at  Trinity 


66  flMlton's  England 

College,  "  there  was  a  regular  service  of  corporal 
punishment  in  the  hall  every  Thursday  evening  at 
seven  in  the  presence  of  all  the  undergraduates." 
Masson  discredits  the  story  that  Milton  was  once 
subjected  to  corporal  punishment. 

In  Milton's  day  the  old  order  was  changing,  and 
we  note  that  on  Fridays  men  ate  meat,  and  that 
the  clergy  indulged  in  impromptu  prayers,  to  the 
scandal  of  the  good  churchmen.  It  was  complained 
that  "  they  lean  or  sit  or  kneel  at  prayers,  every 
man  in  a  several  posture  as  he  pleases ;  at  the  name 
of  Jesus,  few  will  bow,  and  when  the  Creed  is 
repeated,  many  of  the  boys,  by  men's  directions, 
turn  to  the  west  door." 

Milton  seems  to  have  attended  plays  at  the 
university,  and  to  have  been  a  critical  observer. 
Toland  quotes  him  as  saying :  "  So  many  of  the 
young  divines  and  those  in  next  aptitude  to  Divinity 
have  been  seen  so  often  on  the  stage  writhing  and 
unboning  their  Clergy  Lims  to  all  the  antic  and 
dishonest  Gestures  of  Trinculos,  Buffoons,  and 
bands;  prostituting  the  shame  of  that  ministry 
which  either  they  had  or  were  nigh  having,  to  the 
eyes  of  Courtiers  and  Court  Ladies,  with  their 
grooms  and  Mademoiselles.  There  where  they  acted 
and  overacted  among  other  young  Scholars,  I  was 
a  Spectator;  they  thought  themselves  gallant  Men 


flDilton's  England  67 

and  I  thought  them  Fools;  they  made  sport,  and 
I  laughed;  they  mispronounced,  and  I  misliked; 
and  to  make  up  the  Atticisms,  they  were  out  and  I 
hist." 

It  is  the  boast  of  Cambridge  that  she  educated 
Cranmer,  Latimer,  and  Ridley,  the  three  martyrs 
whom  Oxford  burned.  It  must  likewise  be  noted 
that  Erasmus,  Spenser,  Coke,  Walsingham,  and 
Burleigh  were  Cambridge  men. 

The  Cambridge  of  Milton's  time  \vas  but  a  small 
town  of  seven  thousand  inhabitants,  about  one-sixth 
of  its  present  size,  but  rich  with  a  history  of  nearly 
six  hundred  years.  Its  most  beautiful  building  then 
as  now  was  King's  College  Chapel  —  in  fact,  the 
most  beautiful  building  in  either  Oxford  or  Cam- 
bridge, despite  Mr  Ruskin's  just  criticism  upon  it. 
No  doubt,  it  would  look  less  like  a  dining-table 
bottom-side  up,  with  its  four  legs  in  air,  were  two 
of  its  pinnacles  omitted;  doubtless  also  the  same 
criticism  on  its  monotonous  decoration  of  the  alter- 
nate rose  and  portcullis,  which  we  made  in  regard 
to  the  Chapel  of  Henry  VII. ,  is  here  applicable.  But 
its  great  length,  its  noble  proportions,  its  rare  rich 
windows,  its  splendid  organ-screen  —  old  in  Mil- 
ton's college  days  —  must  appeal  to  every  lover  of 
beauty.  One  loves  to  think  of  the  young  poet  mus- 
ing here  upon  those  well-known  lines  in  "II 


68  ADtlton's  England 

Penseroso  "  which  this  stately  building  may  have 
inspired. 

"  But  let  my  due  feet  never  fail 

To  walk  the  studious  cloisters  pale, 

And  love  the  high,  embowered  roof, 

With  antick  pillars  massy  proof, 

And  storied  windows,  richly  dight, 

Casting  a  dim  religious  light. 

There  let  the  pealing  organ  blow, 

To  the  full  voiced  Quire  below, 

In  service  high  and  anthem  clear, 

As  may  with  sweetness  through  mine  ear 

Dissolve  me  into  ecstasies, 

And  bring  all  heaven  before  mine  eyes." 

In  King's  Chapel  Queen  Elizabeth  attended  ser- 
vice several  times,  and  listened  with  delight  to  a 
Latin  sermon  from  the  text  "  Let  every  soul  be 
subject  unto  the  higher  powers."  On  the  afternoon 
of  the  same  Sunday  she  returned  to  the  antechapel 
and  witnessed  a  play  of  Plautus. 

Among  many  buildings  which  were  very  old  even 
in  Milton's  time  must  be  mentioned  the  church  of 
St.  Benedict  on  Bene't  Street,  which  was  once  the 
chapel  of  Corpus  Christi  College.  Its  ancient  tower 
is  especially  noteworthy.  Its  little  double  windows 
are  separated  by  a  baluster-shaped  column.  The 
tower  is  similar  to  one  at  Lincoln,  and,  with  the 
whole  structure,  antedates  the  Norman  conquest. 

A  generation  before  Milton's  time  Robert  Browne, 


flDilton's  JEnglant)  69 

the  father  of  Congregationalism,  drew  great  crowds 
within  this  venerable  edifice  to  listen  to  his  radical 
doctrine.  At  Cambridge,  where  he  had  studied, 
he  became  impressed  with  the  perfunctoriness  and 
worldliness  of  the  Church  of  his  time,  and  he  re- 
solved to  "  satisfy  his  conscience  without  any  regard 
to  license  or  authority  from  a  bishop." 

When  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  fled  from  Austerfield 
and  Scrooby  in  1608,  it  was  as  Brownists  or  Sepa- 
ratists that  they  went  to  Holland.  They  sought  a 
refuge  where  they  might  worship  God  according  to 
the  dictates  of  their  own  conscience,  without  inter- 
ference of  bishop  or  presbyter.  It  was  Browne's 
doctrine,  not  only  of  the  absolute  separation  of 
Church  and  state,  but  also  of  the  independence  of 
each  individual  congregation,  that  laid  the  founda- 
tion of  church  government  in  New  England.  Presby- 
terianism  has  gained  little  root  east  of  the  Hudson. 
After  Browne  had  suffered  for  his  faith  in  thirty  of 
the  dismal  dungeons  of  that  day,  and,  shattered  in 
mind  by  his  suffering,  had  recanted  and  returned  to 
Mother  Church,  his  disciples  remained  true  to  the 
light  that  he  had  shown  them;  the  generation  of 
scholars  with  whom  Milton  talked  at  Cambridge 
were  as  familiar  with  Browne's  doctrine  as  the 
present  generation  is  with  that  of  Maurice  and 
Martineau,  and  Milton  must  have  been  much  influ- 
enced by  it. 


7°  /IDUton's  Bnglanfc 

Opposite  St.  John's  Chapel  is  the  little  round 
church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre.  This  is  the  earliest 
of  the  four  churches  in  England  built  by  the  Tem- 
plars which  still  remain.  It  is  similar  to  the  Temple 
church  in  London,  and  was  probably  begun  a  little 
later  than  St.  Benedict's,  which  has  just  been  men- 
tioned. It  is  questionable  whether  the  students  of 
Milton's  college  days  appreciated  the  beauty  of  this 
beautiful  remnant  of  the  Norman  period  that  was 
in  their  midst.  The  taste  of  that  day  was  decidedly 
for  architecture  of  the  Renaissance  type,  of  which 
Cambridge  boasts  many  examples. 

In  Milton's  time  the  most  beautiful  quadrangle 
in  Cambridge,  and  perhaps  in  the  world,  that  of 
Trinity,  had  been  but  newly  finished  by  the  architect, 
Ralph  Symons,  who  altered  and  harmonised  a  group 
of  older  buildings.  In  the  centre  of  the  court  is 
Neville's  fountain,  built  in  1602,  which  is  a  fine 
example  of  good  English  Renaissance  work.  During 
four  years  of  Milton's  residence,  part  of  St.  John's 
College  was  in  process  of  erection  in  the  Italian 
Gothic  style.  This  was  at  the  expense  of  the  Lord 
Keeper  Williams,  whose  initials  and  the  date,  1624, 
are  lettered  in  white  stone  near  the  western  oriel. 
It  was  completed  in  1628.  Clare  Bridge  was  not 
finished  until  1640,  and  most  of  the  other  beautiful 
bridges  that  span  the  Cam  to-day  were  unknown 


ST.  SEPULCHRE'S  CHURCH,  CAMBRIDGE 

From  an  old  engraving. 


flMlton's  Bnalanfc  71 


to  Milton  when  he  mused  beside  its  shady  banks 
where 

"  Camus,  reverend  sire,  went  footing  slow, 
His  mantle  hairy  and  his  bonnet  sedge 
Inwrought  with  figures  dim,  and  on  the  edge 
Like  to  that  sanguine  flower  inscribed  with  woe." 

Only  fifteen  miles  away,  across  the  level  fields,  lay 
Ely  Cathedral,  built  on  what  was  once  hardly  more 
than  an  island  in  the  Fens.  Many  a  time  during 
his  seven  years  in  the  university  town  must  Milton 
have  walked  over  there,  or  ridden  on  one  of  Hobson's 
horses,  perhaps  with  his  dear  Charles  Diodati,  to 
view  the  mighty  structure,  or  to  study  its  Norman 
interior.  Its  gray  towers  and  octagonal  lantern 
dominate  the  little  town  that  clusters  around  it,  and 
may  be  seen  from  far  across  the  plain. 

During  these  studious  years,  while  Milton  walked 
among  the  colleges  where  Chaucer,  Bacon,  Ben 
Jonson,  and  Erasmus  had  likewise  walked  as  stu- 
dents, he  was  not  only  busied  with  logic,  philosophy, 
and  the  literature  of  half  a  dozen  living  and  dead 
languages,  but  his  tender  emotions  seem  to  have  been 
briefly  touched  by  some  unknown  fair  one;  and  his 
interest  in  public  matters,  for  instance,  Sir  John 
Eliot's  imprisonment  in  the  Tower,  is  evident.  In 
one  letter  he  mentions  the  execution  of  a  child  but 
nine  years  old,  for  setting  fire  to  houses.  A  scourge 


72  ADilton's 

of  the  plague  afflicted  London  on  the  year  that  he 
entered  Cambridge,  and  five  years  later  he  was 
driven  from  town  by  its  devastation  there.  The 
university  ceased  all  exercises,  and  the  few  members 
of  it  that  remained  shut  themselves  in  as  close  pris- 
oners. So  great  was  the  poverty  and  suffering  inci- 
dent to  this  calamity,  that  the  king  appealed  to  the 
country  for  aid  to  the  stricken  town. 

During  these  years  of  quiet  growth,  Milton's  first 
noteworthy  poems  appear,  of  which  the  Latin  poems, 
according  to  good  judges,  deserve  the  preference. 
We  here  mention  only  some  of  his  English  poems. 
The  longest  of  these,  which  was  written  the  month 
and  year  when  he  came  to  his  majority,  was  begun 
on  Christmas  morning,  1629.  This  serious  youth  of 
twenty-one  longed  to  give  "  a  birthday  gift  for 
Christ,"  and  thus  appeared  his  poem,  "  On  the 
Morning  of  Christ's  Nativity."  Three  or  four  years 
earlier  he  had  written  on  the  death  of  his  baby  niece, 
Mrs.  Philips's  child,  his  lines  "  On  the  Death  of  a 
Fair  Infant."  The  revelation  of  self  in  his  sonnet 
"  On  His  Being  Arrived  to  the  Age  of  Twenty- 
Three,"  makes  the  latter  the  most  interesting  of 
these  early  flights  of  song. 

The  most  precious  literary  treasure  which  Cam- 
bridge possesses,  and  as  Mr.  Edmund  Gosse  asserts, 
"  the  most  precious  manuscript  of  English  lit- 


rtMlton's  EnQlanfc  73 


erature  in  the  world,"  is  the  packet  of  thirty  loose 
and  ragged  folio  leaves  covered  with  Milton's  hand- 
writing, which  since  1691  has  lain  in  Trinity  Col- 
lege Library.  For  a  generation,  they  attracted  no 
attention,  but  later  they  were  examined  and  handled 
by  so  many  that  they  suffered  seriously;  within 
fifty  years,  seventeen  lines  of  "  Comus  "  were  torn 
out  and  stolen  by  some  unknown  thief.  Mr.  Gosse, 
in  a  delightful  article  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  upon 
"The  Milton  Manuscripts  at  Cambridge,  "gives  reins 
to  his  imagination  in  picturing  the  sudden  tempta- 
tion of  this  man,  who,  passing  down  the  long  ranges 
of  "  storied  urn  and  animated  bust,"  which  adorn  the 
interior  of  Wren's  famous  structure,  advances 
beyond  the  beautiful  figure  of  the  youthful  Byron 
to  the  gorgeous  window  in  which  the  form  of  Isaac 
Newton  shines  resplendent.  The  careless  attendant 
places  in  his  hands  the  richly  bound  thin  folio,  — 
"  and  now  the  devil  is  raging  in  the  visitor's  bosom; 
the  collector  awakens  in  him,  the  bibliomaniac  is 
unchained.  In  an  instant  the  unpremeditated  crime 
is  committed.  .  .  .  And  so  he  goes  back  to  his  own 
place  certain  that  sooner  or  later  his  insane  crime  will 
be  discovered  .  .  .  certain  of  silent  infamy  and 
unaccusing  outlawry,  with  no  consolation  but  that 
sickening  fragment  of  torn  verse  which  he  can  never 
show  to  a  single  friend,  can  never  sell  nor  give  nor 


74  /IMlton's  England 

bequeath.  Among  literary  criminals,  I  know  not 
another  who  so  burdens  the  imagination  as  this 
wretched  mutilator  of  '  Comus.' '  These  pages  are 
the  laboratory  or  studio  of  the  poet,  and  reveal  most 
interestingly  the  progress  of  his  art  during  his  earlier 
creative  years.  Like  Beethoven's  note-book,  they 
teach  the  impatient  and  inaccurate  that  genius  con- 
descends carefully  to  note  little  things  and  to  take 
infinite  pains,  whether  it  be  with  symphonies  or 
sonnets.  Charles  Lamb,  on  looking  over  the  Milton 
manuscripts,  whimsically  recorded  his  astonishment 
that  these  lines  had  not  fallen  perfect  and  polished 
from  the  poet's  pen.  "  How  it  staggered  me  to  see 
the  fine  things  in  their  ore!  interlined,  corrected!  as 
if  their  words  were  mortal,  alterable,  displaceable  at 
pleasure !  "  But  the  average  man,  who  despairs  of 
ever  attaining  artistic  excellence,  and  finds  every 
kind  of  literary  composition  a  formidable  task,  takes 
consolation  in  the  fact  here  revealed,  that  even  the 
creator  of  "  L' Allegro  "  and  "  II  Penseroso,"  before 
he  reached  the  perfect  phrase,  —  "  endless  morn  of 
light,"  —  experimented  with  no  less  than  six  others  : 
"  ever-endless  light,"  "  ever  glorious,"  "  uneclipsed," 
"  where  day  dwells  without  night,"  and  "  in  cloud- 
less birth  of  night."  The  authorities  of  Trinity 
College,  having  of  late  realised  the  invaluable  service 
to  men  of  letters  that  this  glimpse  into  the  poet's 


flMlton's  England  75 

workshop  would  be,  have  issued  a  limited  edition,  in 
sumptuous  form,  of  a  perfect  facsimile  of  the 
Milton  manuscripts.  "  Now,  for  the  first  time,"  as 
Mr.  Gosse  remarks,  "  we  can  examine  in  peace,  and 
without  a  beating  heart  and  blinded  eyes,  the  price- 
less thing  in  its  minutest  features."  When  it  is 
remembered  that  no  line  of  Shakespeare's  remains 
in  his  own  handwriting,  and  nothing  of  any  conse- 
quence of  Chaucer's  or  Spenser's,  Mr.  Gosse  cannot 
be  accused  of  over-statement  when  he  says  that  to 
all  lovers  of  literature  this  volume  is  "  a  relic  of 
inestimable  value.  To  those  who  are  practically 
interested  in  the  art  of  verse,  it  reads  a  more  preg- 
nant lesson  than  any  other  similar  document  in  the 
world." 

Some  day  the  great  university  may  add  to  its 
charms  not  only  an  adequate  memorial  to  its  Puri- 
tans, but  one  to  its  poets  —  Spenser,  Milton,  Pope, 
Gray,  Coleridge,  Wordsworth,  Byron,  and  Tenny- 
son, who  have  enriched  it  by  their  presence,  and  have 
made  Cambridge  par  excellence  the  university  of  the 
poets.  It  must  be  remembered  that  Chaucer  and 
Shakespeare  were  not  university  men. 

The  time  for  a  pilgrimage  to  Cambridge  is  term 
time,  when  window-boxes,  gay  with  blossoms, 
brighten  gray  old  walls  within  the  "  quads,"  and 
when  the  streets  are  enlivened  by  three  thousand 


76  rtMlton's 

favoured  youths  intent  on  outdoor  sport.  Then  all 
points  of  interest  are  accessible,  and  perchance  one 
may  be  so  fortunate  as  to  get  entrance  up  narrow, 
worn  stone  stairways  into  some  student's  cosy  study ; 
the  visitor  will  find  it  lined  writh  books,  rackets,  and 
boxing-gloves,  and  decorated  with  trophies  and 
photographs  of  some  one  else's  sister.  Bits  of  college 
gossip  and  local  slang,  hints  of  college  traditions, 
prejudices,  and  customs  pleasantly  vary  the  tourist's 
hours  spent  over  the  fine  print  of  Baedeker  and 
in  search  for  the  tombs  of  eminent  founders. 

Even  if  one  is  a  tourist  and  not  a  "  fresher,"  he 
will  find  it  profitable  to  study  contemporary  Cam- 
bridge through  "  The  Fresher's  Don't,"  written  by 
"  A  Sympathiser,  B.  A.,"  and  addressed  to  freshers 
"  in  all  courtesy."  As  to  dress,  the  "  fresher," 
among  other  pieces  of  sage  advice,  is  told :  "  Don't 
forget  to  cut  the  tassel  of  your  cap  just  level  with 
the  board.  Only  graduates  wear  long  tassels." 

"  Don't  wear  knickerbockers  with  cap  and  gown, 
nor  carry  a  stick  or  umbrella.  These  are  stock 
eccentricities  of  Fresherdom."  (The  genuine  Cam- 
bridge student  would  rather  be  soaked  to  his  skin 
and  risk  pneumonia,  than  encounter  the  derisive 
grin  which  an  umbrella  would  evoke.) 

"  Don't  aspire  to  seniority  by  smashing  your  cap 
or  tearing  your  gown,  as  you  deceive  no  one." 


flDUton's  Enalaito  77 

"  Don't  be  a  tuft-head.  The  style  is  more  fa- 
voured by  errand  boys  than  gentlemen." 

"  Don't  by  any  chance  sport  a  tall  hat  in  Cam- 
bridge. It  will  come  to  grief." 

Under  other  headings,  the  following  injunctions 
may  be  selected: 

"  Don't  sport  during  your  first  month.  You  will 
only  earn  the  undesirable  appellation  of  *  Smug.'  ' 

"  Don't  speak  disrespectfully  of  a  man  '  Who  only 
got  a  third  in  his  Trip.,  and  so  can't  be  very  good.' 
Before  you  go  down  your  opinion  will  be  *  That  a 
man  must  be  rather  good  to  take  the  Trip,  at  all.' ' 

"  Don't  mistake  a  Don  for  a  Gyp.  The  Gyp 
is  the  smarter  individual." 

"  Don't  forget  that  St.  Peter's  College  is  '  Pot- 
House,'  Caius  is  '  Keys,'  St.  Catherine's  is  '  Cats,' 
Magdalene  is  '  Maudlen,'  St.  John's  College  Boat 
Club  is  '  Lady  Margaret/  and  a  science  man  is 
taking  '  Stinks.'  " 

"  Don't  forget  that  Cambridge  men  *  keep '  and 
not  '  live.' " 


CHAPTER   IV. 

MILTON     AT    HORTON 

|N  leaving  Cambridge,  when  he  was  nearly 
twenty-four  years  old,  Milton  retired  to 
his  father's  new  home  at  Horton,  about 
seventeen  miles  west  of  London.  Here  he  tells  us 
that,  "  with  every  advantage  of  leisure,  I  spent  a 
complete  holiday  in  turning  over  the  Greek  and  Latin 
writers;  not  but  that  I  sometimes  exchanged  the 
country  for  the  town,  either  for  the  purpose  of  buy- 
ing books,  or  for  that  of  learning  something  new  in 
mathematics,  or  in  music,  in  which  sciences  I  then 
delighted." 

As  Milton's  father  was  in  easy  circumstances 
his  son  never  earned  money  until  after  he  was  thirty- 
two  years  of  age.  These  free  and  quiet  years  at 
Horton,  when  he  was  his  own  master,  and  was 
without  a  care,  were  the  happiest  of  his  life. 

The  visitor  from  London  now  alights  at  the  little 
station  of  Wraysbury,  and  if  it  be  upon  a  July 
4th,  as  when  the  writer  made  a  pilgrimage  to 
Horton,  he  will  find  no  pleasanter  way  to  celebrate 
the  day  than  to  stroll  through  level  fields  by  the 

78 


/IMlton's  lEnglant)  79 

green  country  roadside  a  mile  and  a  half  to  the  little 
hamlet  among  the  trees.  On  the  way  he  will  espy 
to  the  left,  on  the  horizon,  the  gray  towers  of 
Windsor,  and  may  imagine  the  handsome  young 
poet,  whose  verse  has  glorified  this  quiet  rural  land- 
scape, pausing  some  morning  in  the  autumn  on  his 
early  walk  to  listen  to  the  far  sound  of  the  hunts- 
man's horn,  and  presently  to  see  the  merry  rout  of 
gaily  clad  dames  and  cavaliers  dash  by,  leaping 
fearlessly  the  hedgerows  and  barred  gates. 

Horton  is  a  tiny,  tranquil  village,  with  little  that 
remains  to-day,  outside  the  ancient  parish  church, 
that  John  Milton  saw,  except  the  Horton  manor- 
house  of  the  Bulstrode  family,  which  had  had  con- 
nections with  Horton  from  the  time  of  Edward  VI. 
The  modern  Milton  manor,  situated  in  beautiful 
grounds,  may  or  may  not  stand  upon  the  site  of 
Milton's  former  home,  which  remained  until  1798, 
when  it  was  pulled  down.  The  old  tavern  of  uncer- 
tain date  upon  the  one  broad  street  may  perhaps 
have  gathered  around  its  antique  hob,  within  the 
little  taproom,  gray-haired  peasants  who  guided 
clumsy  ploughs  through  the  rich  loam  of  the  fields  of 
Horton,  while  the  white-handed  poet  sat  on  a  velvet 
lawn  under  leafy  boughs,  and  penned  his  blithe 
tribute  to  the  nightingale,  or  in  imagination  sported 
with  Amaryllis  in  the  shade,  or  with  the  shepherds, 


8o  rtMlton's 

sprites,    and    nymphs    who    peopled    his    youthful 
dreams. 

As  in  Cambridge,  runnels  of  clear  water,  which 
come  from  the  little  river  Colne  not  far  distant, 
flow  beside  the  road.  Even  to-day  one  has  not  far 
to  seek  to  find  the  suggestion  for  those  exquisite 
lines  in  "  Comus  "  which  Milton  wrote  in  Horton : 

"  By  the  rushy-fringed  bank, 
Where  grows  the  willow  and  the  osier  dank, 
My  sliding  chariot  stays, 
Thick  set  with  agate  and  the  azurn  sheen 
Of  turkis  blue  and  emerald  green 
That  in  the  channel  strays : 
Whilst  from  off  the  waters  fleet 
Thus  I  set  my  printless  feet 
O'er  the  cowslip's  velvet  head 
That  bends  not  as  I  tread." 

The  student  of  Milton  finds  the  centre  of  interest 
in  Horton  to-day  to  be  the  beautiful  old  church 
where  the  Milton  family  attended  service  for  five 
years,  and  where  the  mother  lies  buried. 

It  stands  in  the  green  churchyard,  back  from  the 
village  street.  Yew-trees  and  rose-bushes  lend  it 
shade  and  fragrance.  The  tombs  for  the  most  part 
are  not  moss-grown  with  age,  but  are  rather  new, 
though  the  slab  at  the  entrance  over  which  Milton 
passed  is  marked  "  1612."  The  battlemented  stone 
tower  is  draped  with  ivy  and  topped  with  reddish 


K   .S 

5-     u 


O    .« 

SI 


flDflton's  Englanfc  81 

brick.  Like  scores  of  churches  of  the  twelfth  or 
thirteenth  century,  in  which  it  was  built,  the  gabled 
portico  is  on  the  side.  The  interior  is  well-pre- 
served ;  it  has  a  nave  with  two  aisles  and  a  chancel, 
and  in  the  porch  is  an  old  Norman  arch.  Upon 
the  wall  at  the  rear  are  wooden  tablets  which  record 
curious  bequests  of  small  annuities  for  monthly 
doles  of  bread  to  needy  people. 

Never  since  those  five  joyous  years  at  Horton  has 
any  English  poet  blessed  the  world  with  verse  of 
such  rare  loveliness  and  perfection  as  fell  from  the 
pen  of  Milton  during  this  time,  when  spirit,  heart, 
and  mind  were  in  attune.  The  world's  clamour 
had  not  broken  in  upon  his  peace. 

Probably  at  the  request  of  his  friend,  the  com- 
poser Lawes,  he  wrote  his  "  Arcades  "  in  honour  of 
the  Countess  Dowager  of  Derby,  who  had  been 
Spenser's  friend.  The  venerable  lady  lived  about 
ten  miles  north  of  Horton  on  her  fine  old  estate  of 
Harefield,  where  Queen  Elizabeth  had  visited  her 
and  her  husband.  On  that  occasion  a  masque  of 
welcome  had  been  performed  for  her  in  an  avenue 
of  elms,  which  thus  received  the  name  of  the 
"  Queen's  Walk."  It  was  in  this  verdant  theatre 
that  Milton's  "  Arcades "  was  performed  by  the 
young  relatives  of  the  countess.  Among  these  were 
Lady  Alice  and  her  boy-brothers,  who  on  the  fol- 


82  flDilton's 

lowing  year  took  part  in  Milton's  "  Comus,"  which 
he  wrote  anonymously  to  be  played  at  Ludlow 
Castle  upon  the  Welsh  border,  when  the  children's 
father  was  installed  as  lord  president  of  Wales. 
Besides  these  longer  poems,  Milton  wrote  his  "  II 
Penseroso  "  and  "  L' Allegro  "  at  Horton,  as  well 
as  the  noble  elegy  "  Lycidas,"  which  was  written  in 
memory  of  his  gifted  friend,  Edward  King,  who 
was  drowned  in  the  summer  of  1637,  just  before 
Milton  left  his  father's  home. 

In  this  peaceful  valley  of  the  Thames,  his  clear 
eye  searched  out  every  sight,  his  musical  ear  sought 
out  every  sound  that  revealed  beauty  or  that  sug- 
gested the  antique,  classic  world  in  which  his  whole 
nature  revelled.  He  walked  in  "  twilight  groves  " 
of  "  pine  or  monumental  oak;  "  he  listened  to  "  soft 
Lydian  airs  "  and  curfew  bells,  to  the  lark's  song, 
and  Philomel's.  He  watched  "  the  nibbling  flocks," 
the  "  labouring  clouds,"  and  saw,  "  bosomed  high 
in  tufted  trees,"  towers  and  battlements  arise,  and 
beheld  in  vision  his  — 

"  Sabrina  fair,  .  .  . 

Under  the  glassy,  cool  translucent  wave 
In  twisted  braids  of  lilies  knitting 
The  loose  train  of  her  amber  dropping  hair." 

He  lived  in  a  world  enchanted  by  the  magic 
of  his  genius.  Yet  in  his  little  world  of  loveliness 


flMlton's  jEnglant)  83 

he  was  not  deaf  to  the  distant  hoarse  cry  of  the 
coming  storm,  and  at  the  last  the  Puritan  within 
him  awoke  and  cried  out  at  those  — 

"  who  little  reckoning  make 
Than  how  to  scramble  at  the  shearers'  feast  .  .  . 
Blind  mouths !  that  scarce  themselves  know  how  to  hold 
A  sheephook  —  or  have  learnt  aught  else  the  least 
That  to  the  faithful  herds-man's  art  belongs ! 
What  recks  it  them  ?     What  need  they  ?     They  are  sped ; 
And  when  they  list,  their  lean  and  flashy  songs, 
Grate  on  their  scrannel  pipes  of  wretched  straw ; 
The  hungry  sheep  look  up  and  are  not  fed 
But  swoln  with  wind  and  the  rank  mist  they  draw 
Rot  inwardly  and  foul  contagion  spread." 

In  the  spring  of  1637,  the  last  year  that  the  poet 
spent  at  Horton,  just  before  another  outbreak  of 
the  plague,  his  mother  died.  We  may  think  of 
brother  Christopher,  a  young  student  of  laws  of  the 
Inner  Temple,  and  the  widowed  sister  Anne  and  her 
two  boys  coming  post-haste  from  London,  and  stand- 
ing beside  the  desolate  father  and  the  poet-brother 
in  the  chancel,  when  the  tabernacle  of  clay  was 
lowered  to  its  resting-place.  A  plain  blue  stone 
now  bears  the  record :  "  Heare  lyeth  the  Body  of 
Sarah  Milton,  the  wife  of  John  Milton,  who  died 
the  3rd  of  April,  1637." 

The  American  visitor  to  Horton  on  the  day  that 
commemorates  his  country's  declaration  of  inde- 


84  flDilton's  Englanfc 

pendence  will  remember  Runnymede  and  Magna 
Charta  Island.  And  he  will  find  nothing  more  con- 
sonant with  his  feeling,  after  visiting  the  home  of 
the  republican  Milton,  than  to  wend  his  way  across 
the  fields,  golden  with  waving  grain  and  gay  with 
scarlet  poppies,  to  the  spot  where  his  ancestors  and 
Milton's  in  1215  brought  tyrant  John  to  sullen 
submission  to  their  just  demands. 

On  the  margin  of  the  river  he  may  embark,  and 
as  the  sun  casts  grateful  shadows  eastward,  he  may 
drift  gently  down  beside  the  long,  narrow  island  in 
the  rushy  margin  of  the  stream,  where  white  swans 
build  their  nests.  A  notice  warns  him  not  to  tres- 
pass, for  the  gray  stone  house  upon  it,  whose  gables 
are  half  hid  by  dense  shrubbery,  is  private  property. 
Some  day  perhaps  this  English  nation  that  so  loves 
its  own  great  history  will  reclaim  this  historic  spot, 
and  mark  Magna  Charta  Island  with  a  memorial  of 
the  brave  men  who  made  it  world-famous.  Or 
perhaps, —  who  knows  ?  —  some  American,  who  has 
spent  three  years  at  Oxford,  and  learned  to  love 
the  history  of  the  race  from  which  he  sprang,  may 
be  impelled  to  honour  that  which  is  best  in  her,  and 
after  placing  in  Cambridge  and  in  Horton  fit 
memorials  of  Milton,  may  be  moved  to  erect  here 
a  worthy  monument  to  the  bold  barons. 


CHAPTER   V. 

MILTON  ON  THE  CONTINENT.  —  IN  ST.  BRIDE'S 
CHURCHYARD.  -  AT  ALDERSGATE  STREET.  - 
THE  BARBICAN.  -  HOLBORN.  -  SPRING  GARDENS 


year  after  his  mother's  death,  and 
probably  just  after  Christopher's  wedding, 
the  poet,  now  a  man  of  thirty,  arrived  in 
Paris,  accompanied  by  his  servant,  and  bearing 
valuable  letters  of  introduction,  among  others,  some 
from  Sir  Henry  Wotton.  As  we  are  dealing  with 
Milton's  England,  scant  space  must  be  allowed  to 
this  year  or  more  spent  among  the  savants  and  the 
unwonted  sights  of  France  and  Italy.  In  Paris 
the  young  scholar  was  introduced  by  Lord  Scuda- 
more  to  the  man  whom  he  most  desired  to  see,  —  the 
great  Hugo  Grotius,  a  man  of  stupendous  erudi- 
tion and  lofty  character.  Milton  declared  that  he 
venerated  him  more  than  any  modern  man,  and 
well  he  might,  for  the  Dutch  hero  and  exile  had 
not  his  equal  upon  the  Continent,  even  in  that  age  of 
great  men. 

Passing  through  Provence,  Milton  entered  Italy 
85 


86  flMlton's 

from  Nice,  and  found  himself  in  the  land  whose 
melodious  language  he  had  made  his  own,  and 
whose  history  and  literature  few  Italians  of  his  age 
knew  better  than  he.  He  went  to  Genoa,  "  La  Su- 
perba,"  which  then  boasted  of  two  hundred  palaces; 
thence  to  Leghorn,  and  fourteen  miles  farther  to  Pisa 
on  the  Arno,  and,  farther  up  the  Arno,  to  beautiful 
Florence.  Here  he  paused  two  months,  lionised  by 
the  best  society,  and  hobnobbing  with  painters, 
poets,  prelates,  and  noblemen  as  he  walked  in  Santa 
Croce,  or  on  the  heights  of  Fiesole,  or  in  the  leafy 
shade  of  Vallombrosa.  Here  it  was  that  he  was 
presented  to  the  blind  Galileo,  "  grown  old,"  he 
writes,  "  a  prisoner  to  the  Inquisition  for  thinking 
in  Astronomy  otherwise  than  the  Franciscan  and 
Dominican  licensers  thought."  Doubtless,  in  later 
years,  when  blindness  and  royal  disfavour  had 
embittered  but  failed  to  crush  his  spirit,  the  gray- 
haired  poet  often  recalled  this  visit  made  in  his 
radiant  youth. 

Going  by  way  of  Siena,  on  its  rocky  height,  Mil- 
ton passed  on  to  Rome  in  the  autumn,  and  here 
spent  two  months  in  the  splendid  city  of  the  Popes, 
in  which  great  St.  Peter's  was  but  newly  finished. 
The  city  swarmed  with  priests  and  prelates,  but  the 
poet  spoke  freely  of  his  own  faith.  One  of  his  great 
joys  was  to  listen  to  the  incomparable  singing  of 


flDUton's  England  87 

Leonora  Baroni,  the  Jenny  Lind  of  his  time,  to 
whom  he  wrote  exuberant  panegyrics  in  Latin. 

In  November,  Milton  drove  to  Naples,  a  hundred 
miles  away,  where  he  was  favoured  with  the  hospi- 
tality of  the  aged  Manso,  the  friend  of  Tasso,  and 
the  wealthy  patron  of  letters ;  he  showed  the  young 
Englishman  his  beloved  city,  presented  him  with 
valuable  gifts,  and  welcomed  him  in  his  villa  at 
Pozzuoli,  overlooking  the  bay  of  Naples. 

Milton  had  planned  to  visit  Sicily  and  Greece, 
but  he  writes :  "  The  sad  news  of  civil  war  coming 
from  England  called  me  back;  for  I  considered  it 
disgraceful  that,  while  my  fellow  countrymen  were 
fighting  at  home  for  liberty,  I  should  be  travelling 
abroad  at  ease  for  intellectual  purposes." 

War,  however,  had  not  yet  broken  out,  and 
Milton  lingered  another  two  months  in  Rome,  little 
aware  of  the  relics  of  the  Caesars  that  lay  buried  in 
the  Forum  under  the  cow-pasture  of  his  time. 

Another  visit  to  Florence,  where  he  was  again 
the  centre  of  attraction,  was  followed  by  trips  to  the 
quaint  mediaeval  cities  of  Lucca,  Ferrara,  Bologna, 
and  to  Venice  by  the  sea.  Guido  Reni,  Guercino, 
Domenichino,  and  Salvator  Rosa  were  then  living, 
and  he  may  have  chanced  upon  them  in  his  wander- 
ings. From  Venice  he  turned  back  through  Verona 
and  Milan,  and  paused  a  little  in  Geneva,  which  was 


88  flDUton's  England 

still  under  the  strong  influence  of  its  great  reformer, 
Calvin;  then  he  journeyed  on  to  Paris,  where  a 
royal  infant,  Louis  XIV.,  had  been  born  during  his 
travels.  On  reaching  home,  after  this  journey  into 
the  great  splendid  world  full  of  temptations  to  every 
man  who  was  dowered  with  keen  susceptibilities 
and  a  passionate,  vehement  disposition,  Milton 
writes :  "I  again  take  God  to  witness  that  in  all 
those  places  where  so  many  things  are  considered 
lawful,  I  lived  sound  and  untouched  from  all  prof- 
ligacy and  vice,  having  this  thought  perpetually 
with  me,  that  though  I  could  escape  the  eyes  of  men, 
I  certainly  could  not  the  eyes  of  God." 

It  was  a  chaste  and  modest  love  that  inspired  the 
six  amatory  sonnets  in  Italian,  which  were  probably 
written  during  his  stay  abroad.  It  was  a  refined 
and  high-bred  man,  who  knew  the  world  and  took 
it  at  its  just  measure,  who  was  now  to  lend  his  hand 
to  fight  the  people's  battle. 

On  his  return  to  England  Milton  did  not  take 
up  his  residence  again  in  his  father's  home  at 
Horton,  which  was  then  kept  by  his  younger  brother 
and  his  wife.  He  went  to  London,  and  for  a  brief 
time  made  his  home  with  a  tailor  named  Russel 
in  St.  Bride's  Churchyard,  near  Fleet  Street,  within 
view  of  Ludgate  Hill  and  St.  Paul's.  Here  in  the 
winter  of  1639-40  he  began  teaching  the  little  Phil- 


/BMlton'3  JBnfllanfc  89 


ips  boys,  his  nephews,  and  took  entire  charge  of 
his  small  namesake  John,  but  eight  years  old.  His 
sister  Anne  by  this  time  had  remarried,  and  was  now 
Mrs.  Agar.  During  his  stay  in  St.  Bride's  Church- 
yard, Milton  jotted  down  on  seven  pages  of  the 
manuscript  that  is  now  in  Trinity  College  Library 
suggestions  for  future  work  with  which  his  brain 
was  teeming.  Of  the  ninety-nine  subjects  that  he 
considered,  sixty-one,  including  "  Paradise  Lost  " 
and  "  Samson,"  are  Scriptural,  and  thirty-eight, 
including  "  Alfred  and  the  Danes  "  and  "  Harold 
and  the  Normans,"  are  on  British  subjects.  Like 
the  young  Goethe  who  projected  "  Faust,"  which 
was  not  finished  until  his  hair  had  whitened,  Milton 
conceived  his  epic  when  it  was  to  wait  a  quarter  of 
a  century  for  completion. 

Says  Edward  Philips,  the  elder  nephew  whom  he 
taught  :  "  He  made  no  long  stay  in  his  lodgings  on 
St.  Bride's  Churchyard  :  necessity  of  having  a  place 
to  dispose  his  books  in,  and  other  goods  fit  for  the 
furnishing  of  a  good  handsome  house,  hastening 
him  to  take  one;  and  accordingly,  a  pretty  garden- 
house  he  took  in  Aldersgate  Street,  at  the  end  of 
an  entry,  and  therefore  the  fitter  for  his  turn, 
besides  that  there  are  few  streets  in  London  more 
free  from  noise  than  that." 

At  that  time  the  entrance  to  the  street  from  St. 


9°  /IMlton's 

Martin's-le-Grand  was  one  of  the  seven  gates  of 
the  city  wall.  A  new  one,  on  the  site  of  a  far  older 
one,  had  been  erected  when  Milton  was  nine  years 
old ;  this  had  "  two  square  towers  of  four  stories 
at  the  sides,  pierced  with  narrow  portals  for  the  foot 
passengers  and  connected  by  a  curtain  of  masonry 
of  the  same  height  across  the  street,  having  the  main 
archway  in  the  middle."  Besides  the  figures  of 
Samuel  and  Jeremiah,  the  gate  was  adorned  with 
an  equestrian  statue  of  James  I.  on  the  Aldersgate 
side,  and  the  same  monarch  on  his  throne  on  the  St. 
Martin's-le-Grand  side.  In  1657  Howell  says: 
"  This  street  resembleth  an  Italian  street  more  than 
any  other  in  London,  by  reason  of  the  spaciousness 
and  uniformity  of  the  buildings  and  straightness 
thereof,  with  the  convenient  distance  of  the  houses." 
Amid  the  labyrinth  of  dingy,  crowded  alleys  with 
which  the  garden  spaces  of  the  seventeenth  century 
now  are  covered,  one  looks  in  vain  to-day  for  any 
trace  of  Milton's  home;  in  short,  of  all  the  houses 
that  he  occupied  in  London,  no  one  remains,  or  even 
has  its  site  marked.  All  we  know  of  the  house 
on  Aldersgate  Street  is,  that  it  stood  in  the 
second  precinct  of  St.  Botolph's  parish,  between  the 
gate  and  Maidenhead  Court  on  the  right,  and  Little 
Britain  and  Westmoreland  Alley  on  the  left. 
Near  by  dwelt  his  old  teacher,  Doctor  Gill,  and 


flDUton's  Enalanfc  91 


Doctor  Diodati,  the  father  of  his  dearest  friend, 
whose  recent  death  he  mourned  in  a  touching  elegy 
\vritten  in  Latin.  Upon  his  walks  into  the  open 
fields,  which  were  not  then  far  distant,  he  must  have 
passed  many  fine  town  houses  of  the  gentry,  their 
sites  now  covered  by  a  dreary  waste  of  shops  and 
factories.  During  these  years  we  learn  that  he 
varied  his  studies  in  the  classics,  and  his  keen  ob- 
servations on  the  doings  of  the  newly  assembled 
Long  Parliament  by  an  occasional  "  gaudy-day," 
in  company  with  some  "  young  sparks  of  his  ac- 
quaintance." 

It  was  in  Aldersgate  Street  that  Milton  began 
writing  his  vehement  pamphlets,  and  it  was  Thomas 
Underhill,  at  the  sign  of  the  "Bible"  in  Wood 
Street,  Cheapside,  who  published  the  first  polemics 
which  he  and  young  Sir  Harry  Vane  sent  forth 
upon  the  burning  questions  of  the  day,  into  which 
the  scope  of  this  volume  forbids  us  to  enter.  Mil- 
ton's future  career  was  a  complete  refutation  of 
Wordsworth's  conception  of  him  as  a  lonely  star 
that  dwelt  apart.  The  gentle  author  of  "  Comus  " 
and  the  composer  of  elegant  sonnets  had  changed 
his  quill  for  that  "  two-handed  engine  "  which  was 
to  smite  prelate  and  prince. 

During  these  days  the  post  brought  daily  news 
of  the  horrors  of  the  insurrection  in  Ireland  ;  Milton 


92  flMlton's 

read  "  of  two  and  twenty  Protestants  put  into  a 
thatched  house  and  burnt  alive  "  in  the  parish  of 
Kilmore;  of  naked  men  and  pregnant  women 
drowned ;  of  "  eighteen  Scotch  infants  hanged  on 
clothiers'  tenterhooks;"  of  an  Englishman,  wife,  and 
five  children  hanged,  and  buried  when  half  alive; 
of  eighty  forced  to  go  on  the  ice  "  till  they  brake  the 
ice  and  were  drowned."  These,  and  the  hideous 
tortures  upon  thousands,  which  history  relates,  may 
explain,  if  they  do  not  palliate  the  cruelties  a  few 
years  later  which  Cromwell  committed,  and  which 
have  made  his  name  synonymous  with  "  monster  " 
to  this  day  throughout  this  much  tormented  and 
turbulent  Irish  people. 

Americans  who  sharply  condemn  the  devastation 
which  old  Oliver  wrought  will  also  do  well  to  cry 
out  no  less  loudly  at  the  like  barbaric  slaughter  in 
the  island  of  Samar,  which  was  ordered  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty  years  later  by  some  of  their  own 
officers. 

War  opened.  There  were  doubtless  anxious  days 
in  the  house  on  Aldersgate  Street,  for  brother 
Christopher,  who  stood  with  the  royal  party,  had 
moved  with  his  father  from  Horton  to  Reading, 
which  was  besieged.  But  war  was  not  the  sole 
cause  for  anxiety.  When  old  Mr.  Milton  arrived 
safely  in  London  late  in  the  summer  he  found  his 


flMlton'0  England  93 

son  John  married  and  already  parted  from  his  bride 
of  seventeen,  who  had  lived  with  him  but  one  short 
month.  Of  the  brief  courting  of  Mary  Powell  at 
her  father's  house  at  Forest  Hill,  near  Oxford,  we 
know  little.  But  one  day  in  May,  when  King 
Charles  I.  had  driven  her  brothers  and  all  other 
students  out  of  Christ  Church,  and  had  taken  up 
temporary  residence  there  himself,  the  venturesome 
lover  came  into  the  enemy's  country  and  called  on 
her.  The  family  was  well  known  to  him;  their 
comfortable  mansion  housed  ten  or  eleven  children 
and  had  fourteen  rooms.  We  read  of  their  "  stilling- 
house,"  "cheese-press  house,"  "wool-house,"  of  their 
two  coaches,  one  wain,  and  four  carts.  It  was  a 
merry  household,  and  one  well-to-do  in  worldly 
goods. 

Whether  the  girl  was  deeply  enamoured  of  the 
grave,  handsome  man,  twice  her  age,  who  asked  her 
hand,  is  doubtful,  but  they  were  soon  married,  and 
in  the  Aldersgate  house,  the  nephew  relates,  there 
was  "  feasting  held  for  some  days  in  celebration  of 
the  nuptials,  and  for  entertainment  of  the  bride's 
friends."  Then  the  relatives  bade  the  bride  good- 
bye. But  the  young  wife,  having  been  brought  up 
and  lived  "  where  there  was  a  great  deal  of  company 
and  merriment,  dancing,  etc.,  when  she  came  to 
live  with  her  husband  found  it  very  solitary ;  no 


94  /lDUton'6  England 

company  came  to  her;"  consequently  at  the  end 
of  a  month  her  preoccupied  husband  gave  consent 
to  the  girl's  request  to  pay  a  visit  home,  with  the 
promise  of  returning  in  September. 

Some  sons  of  intimate  friends  joined  the  nephews 
as  pupils,  and  the  elder  Milton  was  added  to  the 
household.  But  the  bride  declined  to  answer  her 
husband's  letters  or  to  return ;  during  the  following 
months  the  irate  man,  thus  deserted,  wrote  his 
pamphlets  on  "  Divorce,"  while  all  England  was 
astir  with  the  meeting  of  the  famous  Westminster 
Assembly,  the  spread  of  Independency,  and  the 
king's  defeat  at  Marston  Moor.  During  these  days 
also  Milton  wrote  his  remarkable  scheme  for  the 
education  of  gentlemen's  sons,  in  which  he  showed 
himself  as  radical  and  original  and  as  ready  to 
make  learning  a  delightful  and  not  an  odious  pro- 
cess as  did  Rousseau  and  Froebel  a  century  or  more 
later.  Marvellous  was  the  work  accomplished  by 
Milton's  young  pupils  at  Aldersgate  Street.  We 
read  of  these  boys  of  fourteen  and  sixteen, 
though  even  their  learned  teacher  knew  not  yet 
of  the  microscope  and  the  law  of  gravitation,  study- 
ing not  only  Greek  and  Latin,  but  Hebrew,  Chaldee, 
Syriac,  and  Italian. 

Milton's  noble  "  Areopagitica  "  —  a  plea  for  free- 
dom of  the  press  —  was  written  during  these  melan- 


flDilton's  I£n0lan&  95 

choly,  wifeless  months,  while  the  din  of  civil  war 
was  in  the  air,  and  he  mused  in  wrath  and  bitterness 
over  his  country's  miseries  and  his  own. 

The  fortunes  of  the  Powell  family  had  waned 
with  the  king's  cause.  One  day,  when  Milton  called 
on  a  relative  who  lived  near  by  his  home,  on  the 
site  of  the  present  post-office,  "  he  was  surprised," 
writes  his  nephew,  "  to  see  one  whom  he  thought 
to  have  never  seen  more,  making  submission  and 
begging  pardon  on  her  knees  before  him."  A 
reconciliation  was  effected,  and,  with  the  wife  of 
nineteen  now  two  years  older  and  wiser  than  since 
their  first  attempt  at  matrimony,  they  began  house- 
keeping in  the  Barbican. 

This  was  a  larger  house  than  the  one  in  Alders- 
gate  Street,  and  only  a  three  minutes'  walk  from 
it.  It  remained  until  Masson's  lifetime  and  had, 
he  says,  "  the  appearance  of  having  been  a  commo- 
dious enough  house  in  the  old  fashion."  "  And  I 
have  been  informed,"  he  adds,  "  that  some  of  the  old 
windows,  consisting  of  thick  bits  of  glass  lozenged 
in  lead,  still  remained  in  it  at  the  back,  and  that 
the  occupants  knew  one  of  the  rooms  in  it  as  a 
schoolroom,  where  Milton  had  used  to  teach  his 
pupils."  The  visitor  to  the  noisy,  bustling  Barbi- 
can to-day,  close  to  old  London  wall,  will  find  noth- 
ing that  Milton  saw. 


96  /IDUton'8 

Here  he  published  the  first  edition  of  his  col- 
lected poems.  The  title-page  tells  us  that  the  songs 
were  set  to  music  by  the  same  musician,  Henry 
Lawes,  "  Gentleman  of  the  King's  Chapell,"  who 
had  engaged  him  to  write  the  "  Arcades "  and 
"  Comus."  It  was  to  be  "  sold  at  the  signe  of  the 
Princes  Arms  in  Paul's  Churchyard,  1645."  The 
wretched  botch  of  an  engraving  of  the  poet  which 
accompanied  it  displeased  him,  and  he  humourously 
compelled  the  unsuspecting  and  unlearned  artist  to 
engrave  in  Greek  beneath  it  the  following  lines : 

"  That  an  unskilful  hand  had  carved  this  print 
You'd  say  at  once,  seeing  the  living  face ; 
But  finding  here  no  jot  of  me,  my  friends, 
Laugh  at  the  botching-artist's  mis-attempt." 

Unfortunately  this  was  the  only  published  por- 
trait of  Milton  during  his  life,  and  gave  strangers 
at  home  and  abroad  the  impression  that  his  face 
was  as  grim  as  his  pamphlets  were  caustic. 

By  strange  coincidence  this  house,  where  Milton 
lived  when  "  Comus  "  was  first  published,  was  but 
a  few  yards  distant  from  the  town  house  of  the 
earl  in  whose  honour  the  masque  had  been  com- 
posed a  dozen  years  or  more  before  this.  With  him 
was  the  "  Lady  Alice,"  now  nearly  twenty-four 
years  old,  who,  as  a  girl  of  eleven,  had  sung  Mil- 


's  J6nglan&  97 

ton's  songs  in  Ludlow  Castle.  The  earl  loved  music, 
and  his  children's  music  teacher,  Lawes,  and  others 
who  had  acted  in  the  merry  masque  comforted  his 
invalidism  with  concourse  of  sweet  sounds,  almost 
within  hearing  of  the  old  scrivener  and  organist 
and  his  poet-son.  Milton  loved  Lawes,  and  wrote 
a  sonnet  to  him;  doubtless  during  these  days  they 
were  much  together. 

About  the  time  that  Milton's  first  baby  daughter 
appeared,  the  Barbican  house  was  crowded  with 
the  disconsolate  Powell  family,  who  had  nearly  lost 
their  all,  and  fled  to  Mary's  husband  for  protection. 
Mother  Powell  seems  to  have  been  a  woman  of 
strong  personality,  and  the  new  baby  was  christened 
"  Anne "  for  her.  Within  two  months,  both  the 
Milton  and  Powell  grandfathers  were  buried  from 
the  house  in  Barbican.  In  the  burials  at  St.  Giles's 
Cripplegate  appears,  in  March,  1646,  the  record: 
"John  Milton,  Gentleman,  15." 

While  worrying  over  the  settlement  of  the  Powell 
estates  and  brother  Christopher's  as  well,  Milton 
continued  his  teaching ;  his  pupil  writes :  "  His 
manner  of  teaching  never  savoured  in  the  least  any- 
thing of  pedantry."  Cyriack  Skinner,  grandson  of 
the  great  Coke,  to  whom  he  wrote  two  sonnets  in 
later  years,  was  his  pupil  in  the  Barbican. 

In   1647,  Just  after  the  march  of  Fairfax  and 


98  flDUton's  Englanfc 

Cromwell  through  the  city,  Milton  removed  to  a 
smaller  house  in  High  Holborn,  "  among  those  that 
open  backward  into  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields,"  which 
had  been  laid  out  by  Inigo  Jones.  Here  he  ceased 
playing  the  schoolmaster,  became  definitely  a  republi- 
can at  heart,  and  busied  himself  with  the  writing  of  a 
history  of  England,  and  compiling  of  a  Latin  diction- 
ary and  a  System  of  Divinity.  The  new  home  was 
among  pleasant  gardens,  and  near  the  bowling  green 
and  lounging-place  for  lawyers  and  citizens.  Its 
exact  site  is  unknown.  In  1648  a  second  baby  girl, 
called  Mary,  was  born  to  the  Miltons  in  the  new 
home. 

By  his  bold  tractate  on  the  "  Tenure  of  Kings 
and  Magistrates,"  which  was  written  during  the 
terrible  days  of  the  king's  trial  and  execution,  Mil- 
ton put  himself  on  the  side  of  the  regicides.  Exactly 
a  month  after  its  appearance  he  was  waited  on  at 
High  Holborn  by  a  committee  from  the  Council  of 
State,  who  asked  him  to  accept  the  position  of 
"  Secretary  for  Foreign  Tongues."  His  eyesight 
was  already  failing;  he  could  no  longer  read  by 
candle-light ;  but  here  was  a  great  opportunity  for 
public  service,  and  he  did  not  long  hesitate.  On 
March  2Oth,  when  he  entered  upon  office,  he  learned 
that  all  letters  to  foreign  states  and  princes  were  to 
be  put  into  dignified  Latin  form,  so  as  to  be  instantly 


flDllton's  Bnalanfc  99 


read  by  government  officials  in  all  countries,  and  not 
into  the  "  wheedling,  lisping  jargon  of  the  cringing 
French,"  as  his  nephew  calls  it.  His  salary  was  a 
trifle  over  £288  —  worth  about  five  times  that  sum 
to-day.  Sometimes  an  early  breakfast  at  High  Hoi- 
born  was  necessary  in  order  to  meet  the  council  at 
seven  A.M.  in  Whitehall,  but  usually  it  met  at  eight 
or  nine.  It  seemed,  however,  best  for  the  Miltons 
to  move  nearer  Whitehall,  and  while  he  waited  for 
his  apartments  to  be  ready,  Milton  took  lodging  at 
Charing  Cross,  opening  into  Spring  Garden,  where 
now  is  the  meeting-place  of  the  London  County 
Council.  This  was  on  the  royal  estate,  and  was  so 
named  from  a  concealed  fountain  which  spurted 
forth  when  touched  by  the  unwary  foot.  It  must 
have  been  a  pleasant  spot,  with  its  bathing  pond  and 
bowling  green  and  pheasant  yard,  which  led  from 
what  is  now  Trafalgar  Square  into  St.  James's 
Park.  Opposite,  at  Charing  Cross,  was  the  palace 
of  the  Percys,  later  called  "  Northumberland 
House,"  and  next  to  it,  where  now  stands  the  Grand 
Hotel,  was  the  home  of  Sir  Harry  Vane.  Queen 
Eleanor's  Cross  had  been  taken  down  in  1647,  an^ 
the  statue  of  Charles  I.,  which  on  the  year  of  Mil- 
ton's death  replaced  it  on  its  site,  was  at  this  time 
kept  in  careful  concealment. 

St.  Martin's  Lane  was  a  genuine  shady  lane,  bor- 


/BMlton's 

dered  with  hedges.  The  church  which  Milton  saw 
upon  the  site  of  the  present  one  was  erected  by 
Henry  VIII. ,  and  was  even  then  in  reality  St. 
Martin's  in  the  Fields. 

Upon  the  north  side  of  what  is  now  Trafalgar 
Square,  which  is  occupied  by  the  National  Gallery, 
stood  the  Royal  Stables.  Pall  Mall,  which  leads 
westward,  was  so  named  from  the  Italian  outdoor 
game,  resembling  croquet,  which  was  played  upon 
a  green  in  the  vicinity.  It  was  then  a  resort  for 
travellers  and  foreigners,  who,  like  the  Londoners 
Pepys  and  Defoe,  frequented  the  chocolate  and 
coffee  houses  in  the  neighbourhood  and  for  a  shil- 
ling an  hour  were  carried  about  in  sedan-chairs. 
The  latter  tells  us  that  "  the  chairmen  serve  you  for 
porters  to  run  on  errands,  as  your  gondoliers  do  at 
Venice." 

St.  James's  Palace,  with  its  picturesque  brick 
gateway,  had  but  just  seen  the  last  hours  of  the 
monarch  whom  Milton  had  helped  dethrone.  Here 
Charles  II.  had  been  born  in  1630,  and  here  the 
Princess  Mary  was  born  in  1662,  and  was  married 
to  William,  Prince  of  Orange,  fifteen  years  later. 


3  J  j 

S     _    ': 
W    •=     § 


PL.     o      ^ 

o-     5 


~    *, 

X 


CHAPTER    VI. 

MILTON       AT       WHITEHALL. SCOTLAND      YARD.  

PETTY       FRANCE. BARTHOLOMEW       CLOSE. 

HIGH      HOLBORN.  JEWIN      STREET.  ARTIL- 
LERY    WALK 

i 

[ILTON  remained  in  Spring  Gardens  about 
seven  months,  when  his  new  apartments  in 
the  north  end  of  Whitehall  Palace  were 
ready.  These  opened  from  Scotland  Yard,  in  which 
was  the  Guard  House.  The  yeomen  of  the  guard 
wore  red  cloth  roses  on  back  and  breast,  and  must 
have  seemed  very  gay  and  imposing  personages  to 
the  little  girls  of  the  Milton  family.  Their  rooms 
were  connected  with  the  various  courts  and  suites  of 
apartments  that  extended  down  to  the  Privy  Garden. 
The  palace  in  Cromwell's  time  probably  retained  in 
residence  a  large  portion  of  the  small  army  of 
caterers,  butchers,  brewers,  confectioners,  glaziers, 
etc.,  who  provided  for  the  constant  needs  of  the 
huge  establishment.  The  Horse  Guards,  built  for 

gentlemen  pensioners,  was  erected  in  1641,  and  was 

101 


102  flMlton's  Englanfc 

still  quite  new.    This  apparently  was  not  on  the  site 
of  the  present  Horse  Guards,  which  was  built  in 

1753- 

At  Scotland  Yard,  Milton's  only  son,  John,  was 
born,  and  here  his  protracted  labours  in  his  vehe- 
ment controversy  with  Salmasius  brought  on  the 
blackness  of  great  darkness  which,  at  the  age  of 
forty-three,  for  ever  shut  his  wrorld  from  view. 
For  the  next  twenty  years  and  more  it  is  the 
blind  poet  whose  life  we  follow,  during  the  period 
when  his  fiery  spirit  was  chastened  not  only  by  his 
own  afflictions,  but  by  the  nation's  also. 

In  1652  Milton  moved  to  Petty  France,  now  York 
Street,  near  the  Bird  Cage  Walk,  which  was  so 
named  from  the  king's  aviary  there.  Here  the 
next  year  his  little  daughter  Deborah  was  born,  and 
soon  after  his  wife,  at  the  age  of  twenty-six,  after 
nine  years  of  married  life,  died.  After  the  first 
estrangement  and  reconciliation,  so  far  as  we  know, 
all  had  gone  well.  Her  little  John,  who  had  scarcely 
learned  to  speak  his  father's  name,  soon  followed 
her  to  the  grave. 

The  household  then  consisted  of  the  poet,  his 
nephew  and  amanuensis  John,  and  his  three  mother- 
less little  girls.  Masson  describes  the  house  as  he 
saw  it  before  its  destruction  in  1875.  It  was  then 
No.  19  York  Street,  and  had  a  squalid  shop  in  its 


REAR  OF  MILTON'S  HOUSE,  AND  TREE  PLANTED  BY  HIM, 
YORK  STREET,  WESTMINSTER  (PETTY  FRANCE) 

From  an  old  engraving. 


flMUon's  England  103 

lower  part,  and  a  recess  on  one  side  of  it  used  for 
stacking  wood.  On  entering  by  a  small  door  and 
passage  at  the  side  of  the  shop,  one  groped  up  a 
dark  staircase,  where  several  tenants  lived,  in  the 
rooms  that  were  once  all  Milton's.  "  The  larger 
ones  on  the  first  floor  are  not  so  bad,  and  what 
are  now  the  back  rooms  of  the  house  may  have  been 
even  pleasant  and  elegant  when  the  house  had  a 
garden  of  its  own  behind  it,  and  that  garden  opened 
directly  into  the  park." 

Jeremy  Bentham,  who  over  a  century  later  was 
landlord  of  the  house  and  lived  close  by,  placed  a 
tablet  on  the  rear  wall  inscribed  "  Sacred  to  Milton, 
Prince  of  Poets."  After  1811  Bentham's  tenant 
was  William  Hazlitt ;  before  that  his  friend  James 
Mill  occupied  the  house. 

Lord  Scudamore,  who  had  given  Milton  an 
introduction  to  Grotius,  was  his  next-door  neigh- 
bour at  York  Street.  To-day  the  loftiest  apartment 
house  in  London  stands  upon  the  unmarked  site 
of  Milton's  house.  The  frequent  walk  which  Milton 
took  to  Whitehall,  with  a  guide  to  his  dark  steps, 
during  his  eight  years'  residence  here,  led  him  half 
a  mile  across  St.  James's  Park  from  Queen  Anne 
Gate  to  Spring  Gardens  or  the  Horse  Guards.  The 
ornamental  water  was  not  then  there,  but  there  were 
ponds  and  trees  and  pleasant  stretches  of  green  turf. 


104  flDUton's 

Charles  II.  had  it  later  all  laid  out  by  the  famous 
French  landscape  artist,  Le  Notre. 

Occasional  sonnets  —  those  to  Cromwell,  Vane, 
"  On  his  Blindness,"  and  "  On  the  Late  Massacre 
in  Piedmont  "  —  appeared  in  the  increasing  leisure 
of  this  period,  when  his  duties  lessened,  and  he 
retired  on  a  diminished  salary.  But  Milton  was 
become  a  man  who  was  sought  out  by  foreigners 
of  note  and  persons  of  quality;  among  his  friends, 
Andrew  Marvell,  the  poet,  and  his  pupil,  Cyriack 
Skinner,  were  frequent  visitors,  with  charming 
Lady  Ranelagh,  his  neighbour,  who  persuaded  him 
to  teach  her  little  son,  and  who  he  said  had  been 
to  him  in  the  place  of  kith  and  kin. 

After  four  years  of  widowerhood,  when  his  little 
girls  were  sadly  in  need  of  a  mother,  Milton  mar- 
ried Katharine  Woodcock,  daughter  of  a  Captain 
Woodcock  of  Hackney,  in  the  church  of  St.  Mary 
Aldermanbury,  on  November  12,  1656.  Her  com- 
ing into  the  home  in  Petty  France  brought  serenity 
and  happiness  to  all  its  inmates.  During  the  brief 
fifteen  months  of  their  married  life,  a  little  daughter 
came,  who  followed  her  soon  after  to  her  grave  in 
St.  Margaret's  Church  beside  the  Abbey,  and  the 
sorrowing  husband  was  again  left  in  his  blindness 
to  bring  up  his  three  motherless  little  daughters. 

After  eighteen  years,  the  poem,  sketched  out  in 


flDilton's  Bnglan&  105 

St.  Bride's  Churchyard,  was  resumed,  and  in  the 
lonely  house  in  Petty  France,  the  first  lines  of 
"  Paradise  Lost  "  were  dictated,  just  before  the  clos- 
ing days  of  Cromwell's  life.  Under  Richard  Crom- 
well, Milton  retained  his  secretaryship,  but  with  the 
return  of  Charles  II.,  in  May,  1660,  he  fled  his  home 
in  Petty  France,  for  he  well  knew  the  vengeance 
that  might  follow.  His  little  girls  were  sent  no 
one  knows  whither,  and  he  took  refuge  in  a  friend's 
house  in  Bartholomew  Close,  a  passage  which  led 
from- West  Smithfield,  through  an  ancient  arch.  It 
was  filled  with  quaint  old  tenements,  where  Doctor 
Caius,  the  founder  of  Caius  College,  Cambridge, 
had  lived,  and  also  Le  Sceur,  who  had  modelled  the 
statue  of  Charles  I.,  which,  as  has  been  stated, 
was  concealed  during  the  Commonwealth,  and  was 
soon  to  be  erected.  Sixty-five  years  later,  young 
Benjamin  Franklin  set  up  type  in  a  printing-office 
here.  To  the  blind  refugee,  it  mattered  little  that 
he  had  left  his  garden  to  be  hemmed  in  by  narrow 
walls.  The  labyrinth  of  little  courts  and  tortuous 
passages  was  his  safeguard.  During  those  days  of 
arrests  and  executions  of  his  friends,  Milton  must 
have  known  that  any  day  might  bring  the  hang- 
man's summons  for  him.  Many  a  time  during  the 
nearly  four  months  that  he  was  hidden  here  must 
he  in  imagination  have  heard  the  shouts  of  the  fickle 


io6  flMlton's  England 

populace,  and  seen  himself  haled  in  a  cart  to 
Tyburn  gallows.  Says  Masson :  "  Absolutely  no 
man  could  less  expect  to  be  pardoned  at  the  Restora- 
tion than  Milton,"  and  "  there  is  no  greater  histor- 
ical puzzle  than  this  complete  escape."  But  his 
faithful  friend,  Andrew  Marvell,  pleaded  for  him, 
and  other  powerful  friends  did  their  utmost  in  his 
behalf;  the  brain  that  was  to  give  birth  to  a  great 
epic  was  spared  to  England. 

Though  Milton  lay  in  some  prison  for  a  little 
time,  during  which  his  "  infamous  "  books  "  were 
solemnly  burnt  at  the  Session  house  in  the  Old 
Bailey  by  the  hand  of  the  common  hangman,"  he 
was  soon  a  free  man,  though  many  of  his  com- 
panions were  meanwhile  hanged  and  quartered,  or 
like  Goffe  and  Whalley  fled  beyond  seas  and  even 
there  scarcely  escaped  the  king's  swift  avengers. 

In  December,  Milton  emerged  from  prison  and 
moved  temporarily  into  a  little  house  on  the  north 
side  of  Holborn  near  Red  Lion  Square,  which  was 
behind  it,  and  nearer  Bloomsbury  than  was  his 
former  residence  upon  the  street.  Close  by  was  the 
Red  Lion  Inn,  where  in  January,  on  the  anniversary 
of  the  execution  of  Charles  I.,  lay  on  a  hurdle, 
amidst  a  howling  mob,  the  ghastly  bodies  of  Crom- 
well, Ireton,  and  Bradshaw,  which  had  been  dis- 
interred and  were  on  their  way  to  Tyburn  to  be 


flMlton's  Bnglanfc  107 

swung  upon  the  gallows.  It  was  well  for  Milton 
to  sit  behind  barred  doors  in  silence  in  those  days, 
while  Sir  Harry  Vane  languished  in  prison,  bold 
Algernon  Sidney  was  in  exile,  and  the  England  that 
he  loved  seemed  in  eclipse. 

In  1 66 1,  Milton,  who  had  good  reason  to  reside 
as  far  away  from  Petty  France  and  the  court  end 
of  town  as  possible,  returned  to  the  neighbourhood 
of  his  early  married  life,  and  took  a  house  in  Jewin 
Street,  off  Aldersgate,  at  the  end  of  the  street  near- 
est St.  Giles's,  Cripplegate,  where  his  father  lay 
buried.  For  the  remainder  of  his  life,  here  and  in 
Artillery  Walk,  he  was  a  parishioner  of  this  church. 
During  the  three  years  spent  here,  Vane  was  be- 
headed, two  thousand  clergy  were  ejected  from  their 
livings,  and  many,  as  Richard  Baxter  tells  us, 
starved  on  an  income  of  only  eight  or  ten  pounds 
a  year  for  a  whole  family;  men  of  Milton's  way 
of  thinking  struggled  for  daily  bread  on  six  days 
in  the  week,  and  preached  on  the  seventh  with  the 
police  upon  their  track. 

During  these  fruitful  years  in  Jewin  Street,  while 
"  Paradise  Lost "  was  growing  apace,  Milton  had 
about  him  his  motherless  and  ill-educated  girls.  The 
oldest,  about  seventeen  years  of  age,  was  hand- 
some, but  lame,  and  had  a  defect  of  speech.  It 
fell  to  Mary  and  little  eleven-year-old  Deborah  to 


io8  /RMlton's  England 

read,  with  scanty  comprehension  of  the  words,  as 
their  father  required  their  services,  from  his  Latin, 
Greek,  Hebrew,  French,  Spanish,  and  Italian  works. 
To  them,  and  to  a  group  of  young  men  who  felt 
it  an  honour  to  serve  him,  he  dictated  the  sonorous 
lines  of  his  great  epic.  No  wonder  that  girls  of  a 
dozen  or  sixteen  years  of  age  found  life  in  Jewin 
Street  dull,  and  Greek  dictionaries  and  the  daily 
records  of  the  doings  of  the  hosts  of  heaven  and 
hell  abominably  irksome.  They  served  their  father 
with  grudging  pen,  and  pilfered  from  him,  and 
tricked  him  in  his  helpless  sightlessness  —  small 
blame  to  them,  perhaps,  whose  rearing  had  been 
by  servants  and  governesses,  but  pitiable  for  the 
father  of  fifty  years,  who  fought  his  daily  battles 
with  fate  alone  in  the  dark. 

Andrew  Marvell  and  Cyriack  Skinner  sought  him 
out,  and  doubtless  told  him  the  latest  literary  news 
of  Henry  More,  the  Platonist;  of  Howell,  but  just 
appointed  historiographer  royal;  of  Samuel  Butler, 
who  had  just  gone  with  the  Lady  Alice  of  "  Comus  " 
to  Ludlow  Castle ;  of  Richard  Baxter,  whose  popu- 
lar book,  "  The  Saints'  Everlasting  Rest,"  Milton 
had  doubtless  read  when  it  appeared  five  years 
before;  of  Pepys,  now  secretary  to  the  Admiralty; 
of  Izaak  Walton,  whose  "  Complete  Angler  "  Mil- 
ton may  have  read  ten  years  before ;  of  Evelyn  and 


flDUton's  Bnglanfc  109 


of  the  poet  Cowley;  of  Bishop  Jeremy  Taylor;  of 
George  Fox,  the  valiant  Quaker,  and  the  philoso- 
phers, Hobbes,  and  John  Locke,  who  was  then  at 
Oxford  ;  and  the  budding  poet,  John  Dryden. 

We  learn  from  Richardson  that  Milton  usually 
dictated  "  leaning  backward  obliquely  in  an  easy 
chair,  with  his  leg  flung  over  the  elbow  of  it, 
though  often  when  lying  in  bed  in  a  morning." 
Sometimes  he  would  lie  awake  all  night  without 
composing  a  line,  when  a  flow  of  verse  would  come 
with  such  an  impetus  that  he  would  call  Mary  and 
dictate  forty  lines  at  once.  During  these  days  a 
newly  converted  young  Quaker,  Thomas  Ellwood, 
who  was  desirous  of  improving  his  Latin,  and  to 
see  John  Milton,  who,  he  writes,  "  was  a  gentleman 
of  great  note  for  learning  throughout  the  learned 
world,"  betook  himself  to  the  modest  home  on 
Jewin  Street,  got  lodging  hard  by,  and  engaged 
to  read  Latin  to  him  six  afternoons  a  week.  Milton, 
noticing  that  he  used  the  English  pronunciation, 
told  him  that  if  he  wanted  to  speak  with  foreigners 
in  Latin  he  must  learn  the  foreign  pronunciation, 
This  Ellwood  by  hard  labour  accomplished,  when 
Milton,  seeing  his  earnestness,  helped  him  greatly 
in  translation.  These  happy  hours  were  interrupted 
by  Elhvood's  arrest  for  attending  the  Quaker  meet- 
ing in  Aldersgate  Street.  Three  months  were  spent 


no  /ftilton's  England 

in  Bridewell  and  Newgate,  where  he  saw  the  bloody 
quarters  and  boiled  heads  of  executed  men,  and 
wrote  out  in  detail  an  account  of  the  hideous  spec- 
tacle. One  heavenly  day  in  a  quiet  library  reading 
of  Dido  and  ^Eneas  with  Milton,  the  next  in  an 
English  hell  of  bestiality,  filth,  and  cruelty  —  a 
memorable  experience  for  a  young  man  of  twenty- 
two,  was  it  not? 

Household  affairs  were  going  from  bad  to  worse 
in  Jewin  Street,  and  the  unhappy  home  needed  a 
wife  and  mother.  When  the  news  came  to  the 
daughter  Mary  that  her  father  was  to  marry  again, 
she  exclaimed  that  it  was  "  no  news  to  hear  of  his 
wedding,  but  if  she  could  hear  of  his  death,  that 
would  be  something."  The  third  wife,  Elizabeth 
Minshull,  was  twenty- four  years  old  when  Milton 
married  her,  in  the  church  of  St.  Mary  Aldermary, 
a  little  south  of  his  boyhood's  home  near  Cannon 
Street.  She  proved  an  excellent  wife,  and  was  of  a 
"  peaceful  and  agreeable  humour."  There  are  tra- 
ditions that  the  young  stepmother  had  golden  hair 
and  could  sing;  her  good  sense  and  housewifely 
accomplishments  brought  peace,  comfort,  and  thrift 
into  the  discordant  household. 

Soon  after  his  marriage,  the  Milton  family  re- 
moved to  a  house  in  Artillery  Walk,  leading  to 
Bunhill  Fields.  This  was  on  the  roadway  which  is 


flDilton's  England  m 

the  southern  part  of  Bunhill  Row.  Not  only  was 
there  a  garden  here,  but  the  site  of  the  present 
Bunhill  Fields  Cemetery,  where  Defoe,  Bunyan, 
Richard  Cromwell,  and  Isaac  Watts  lie  buried,  was 
then  an  open  field;  while,  close  at  hand,  was  Artil- 
lery Ground,  where  trained  bands  occasionally 
paraded,  as  they  have  done  from  1537  to  the  present 
time.  Of  the  house  we  know  little,  except  that  it 
had  four  fireplaces.  Near  by  was  "  Grub  "  Street, 
since  changed  to  "  Milton  "  Street,  partly  perhaps 
to  commemorate  the  fact  of  the  poet's  residence 
in  the  neighbourhood.  In  June,  1665,  while  the 
Great  Plague  had  begun  its  desolating  course, 
Milton  had  completed  the  last  lines  of  "  Paradise 
Lost."  It  was  then  that  young  Ellwood  came  to  his 
assistance,  and  engaged  for  him  "  a  pretty  box  in 
Giles-Chalfont,"  whither  he  was  driven  with  his 
wife  and  daughters. 


CHAPTER    VII. 

CHALFONT  ST.   GILES.  —  ARTILLERY    WALK 

[F  the  pilgrim  to  the  shrines  of  Puritans 
and  poets  has  thought  worth  while  to 
spend  an  afternoon  at  Horton,  he  may 
well  spare  two  or  three  days  more  for  a  drive 
from  there  to  Stoke  Pogis,  Harefield,  and  the  region 
thirteen  miles  north  of  Horton  in  lovely  Bucking- 
hamshire, among  the  Chiltern  hills. 

Here  stands,  about  twenty-three  miles  northwest 
of  London,  in  the  little  village  of  Chalfont  St.  Giles, 
the  only  house  that  still  exists  in  which  Milton  ever 
lived.  The  village  lies  in  a  quiet  hollow  among  the 
hills,  three  or  four  miles  removed  from  the  shriek 
of  any  locomotive.  One  may  approach  it  by  train 
from  the  little  stations  of  Chorley  Wood  or  Chalfont 
Road.  It  will  well  repay  one  before  doing  so  to 
make  a  detour  of  a  mile  and  a  half  to  Chenies,  — 
one  of  the  loveliest  villages  in  all  England,  —  beside 
the  tiny  Chess,  where  Matthew  Arnold  loved  to 
angle.  A  delightful  hostelry  is  the  "  Bedford 
Arms,"  where  he  always  "put  up."  The  chief 

112 


fl&tlton's 

feature  of  the  place  is  the  mortuary  chapel  of  the 
Russell s,  where  the  family  have  been  buried  from 
1556  until  the  present  day.  But  the  lover  of  the 
picturesque  will  more  admire  the  adjoining  Tudor 
mansion.  American  multi-millionaires  have  built 
no  Newport  palace  that  is  so  attractive  to  the  lover 
of  the  beautiful. 

As  one  drives  toward  Chalfont,  he  enters  it  at 
the  end  farthest  from  Milton's  cottage,  which  is 
one  of  the  last  houses  upon  the  left  of  the  main 
street.  It  is  on  the  road  that  leads  to  Beaconsfield, 
four  miles  away.  The  cottage  lies  at  the  foot  of 
a  slope  close  by  the  roadside;  it  is  built  of  brick 
and  timber,  and  has  two  entrances,  four  sitting- 
rooms,  and  five  bedrooms. 

On  the  floor  which  is  level  with  the  garden  are 
two  sitting-rooms  that  look  toward  the  hill  slope 
and  Beaconsfield.  Their  quaint  old  windows  are 
filled  with  diamond  panes,  which  are  set  in  lead 
and  open  outward.  The  long  carved  dining-table, 
in  the  room  at  the  left,  and  the  small  table,  cabinet, 
and  stools  in  the  room  at  the  right,  which  is  seen 
in  the  illustration,  were  Milton's  own.  Here  at  the 
open  casement,  during  those  days  of  horror  in  the 
stricken  city,  Milton  sat  and  breathed  the  fragrant 
air,  and  in  the  evening  listened  to  the  nightingales 
which  haunt  the  Chalfont  groves.  Hither  the  brave 


"4  flMlton's 

young  Ellwood  came  to  greet  him,  fresh  as  he  was 
from  another  imprisonment;  he  returned  with  his 
comments  the  manuscript  of  "  Paradise  Lost," 
which  Milton  had  loaned  to  him,  and  added :  "  Thou 
hast  said  much  here  of  Paradise  lost,  but  what  hast 
thou  to  say  of  Paradise  found?"  To  which  the 
poet  answered  nothing  at  the  time,  but,  as  the  result 
proved,  the  query  brought  later  a  fitting  response 
in  "  Paradise  Regained."  Perhaps  the  visitor  may 
be  allowed  to  ascend  the  narrow  winding  stair  with 
its  carved  railing  to  the  humble  chambers  under  the 
gables,  whither  the  poet  groped  his  way  to  bed,  and 
to  glance  into  narrow  cupboards,  where  he  may  have 
piled  his  books  and  manuscripts.  There  is  a 
tender,  pathetic  charm  about  the  place,  which  even 
the  greater  poet's  house  at  Stratford  lacks.  The 
man  Shakespeare  —  the  successful  dramatist  —  we 
know  little  of;  his  inner  life  we  only  guess  at  and 
infer.  His  consummate  genius  wins  our  worship; 
it  does  not  touch  our  hearts.  But  the  blind  poet, 
the  passionate  lover  of  liberty  and  fearless  pleader 
for  justice,  the  man  who  like  blind  Samson  shook 
his  locks  in  defiance  of  fate,  and  would  not  be  cast 
down,  this  man  we  know.  We  have  followed  step 
by  step  his  brilliant  youth,  his  strenuous  manhood, 
and  his  brave,  declining  years.  With  all  his  faults 
of  temper  we  love  him  as  we  love  Dante  and  Michael 


flDUton's  jencjlan&  115 

Angelo  and  Beethoven.  We  linger  reverently  in 
the  little  house  made  dear  to  England  by  his  pres- 
ence there. 

Then  we  wander  back  a  little  on  our  way,  to  a 
row  of  antique  houses  and  go  through  a  passage  to 
the  venerable  parish  church  and  churchyard  where 
Milton's  feet  doubtless  have  trod. 

En  route  to  Beaconsfield  the  traveller  will  not 
fail  to  pause  at  Jordan's,  a  plain,  square  structure  in 
a  leafy  grove,  beside  a  green  God's  Acre.  It  was 
the  Quaker  meeting-house  in  Milton's  day  as  it  is 
still.  At  the  rear  is  a  concealed  gallery  where  the 
worshippers  took  refuge  when  their  service  was 
broken  up  by  armed  pursuers.  Close  by  are  many 
unmarked  graves,  and  among  them  is  Ellwood's. 
But  the  grave  of  William  Penn,  the  founder  of  a 
great  American  State,  and  the  graves  of  his  wife 
and  children,  have  low  modern  headstones,  for  their 
position  was  well  known.  Here  the  man  of  gentle 
birth,  the  hero  and  saint,  who  is  dear  to  all  Ameri- 
cans, sleeps  peacefully  among  his  English  kindred. 
During  the  year  when  Milton  was  at  Chalfont,  Penn 
was  a  youth  in  Paris,  seeing  the  world,  but  keeping 
himself  unspotted  from  it. 

At  Beaconsfield  we  drive  through  a  broad  country 
road  to  the  Saracen's  Head  —  a  conspicuous  land- 
mark. We  turn  our  steps  at  once  to  the  gray  old 


church  and  its  battlemented  tower,  whose  walls 
of  flint  rise  in  rugged  strength  from  the  churchyard 
with  its  mossy  tombs.  Within  the  centre  aisle  lies 
buried  the  valiant  apostle  of  American  freedom  — 
Edmund  Burke. 

He  was  a  man  with  whom  the  refugee  at  Chalfont 
would  have  found  much  in  common  had  he  lived  a 
century  and  a  quarter  later.  The  inscription  over  his 
grave  is  modern,  and  so  are  the  bas-relief  and 
inscription  to  him  on  the  side  wall.  His  former 
seat  within  the  parish  church  is  marked  upon  the 
floor,  and  a  fine  carved  desk  is  made  from  his  old 
pew.  Within  the  churchyard  gay  roses  and  solemn 
yews  droop  over  ancient  monuments,  among  them, 
the  showy  obelisk  on  Waller's  grave.  Nothing  is 
lovelier  than  the  drive  late  in  an  afternoon  over  the 
high  hills,  from  which  one  catches  far  distant  views, 
to  Amersham,  which  lies  in  a  little  valley  among  the 
hills.  This  was  a  seat  of  the  Puritan  revolt  and 
earlier  martyrdoms.  John  Knox  preached  here  — 
an  obnoxious  personage  to  the  worthy  sexton  of  the 
beautiful  church,  who  told  the  writer  that  he  had 
buried  every  man  and  woman  in  the  parish  for  forty 
years.  "  The  fact  is,"  quoth  this  worthy,  "  John 
Knox  traduced  Mary  Queen  of  Scots ;  now  I've  no 
use  for  a  man  who  isn't  good  to  the  ladies."  On 
being  reminded  that  Elizabeth  did  worse  and  cut 


flDilton's  J6n0lant>  n; 

her  head  off,  he  condoned  that  as  being  "  probably 
an  affair  of  state."  A  lover  of  poets  was  this  sexton. 
"  I've  read  'em  all,"  he  said,  "  but  my  favourite  is 
Pope."  Isaac  Watts  likewise  shared  his  approval, 
and  he  volunteered  upon  the  spot  a  number  of  his 
hymns  from  memory.  "  But  I  take  a  lugubrious 
view  of  life,"  continued  this  digger  of  many  graves, 
"  for  it's  just  grub,  grub,  grub,  all  your  life,  and 
then  be  shovelled  under ;  the  fact  is,  as  any  man  can 
see  with  half  an  eye,  that  this  is  the  age  of  mammon 
and  no  mistake."  Shakespeare  would  have  found  a 
gravedigger  to  his  mind  in  the  sexton  of  Amersham. 
Amersham  does  not  offer  so  favourable  accommo- 
dations for  the  night  as  does  Wendover.  which  has 
a  choice  of  hostelries,  and  is  but  a  few  minutes'  ride 
by  train  from  the  Amersham  station,  a  quarter  of 
a  mile  away.  After  viewing  the  early  English 
church  in  Wendover  next  morning,  one  may  hire  a 
trap  and  drive  to  Great  Hampden,  three  miles  dis- 
tant, to  the  stately  home  of  John  Hampden,  within 
a  large  park.  There  are  still  traces  of  the  ancient 
road  which  was  cut  through  the  park  for  Queen 
Elizabeth.  The  shady  avenue  of  beeches  around  the 
side  leads  up  to  the  little  church  of  gray  flint  stone 
which  stands  near  the  great  mansion  and  its  mighty 
cedars  of  Lebanon.  The  little  churchyard  is  carpeted 
with  velvet  turf,  starred  with  tiny  white  flowers 


us  dbtlton's  Englanfc 

which  recall  the  foregrounds  in  the  brilliant  paintings 
of  Van  Eyck. 

The  reader  of  Puritan  history  is  reminded  of  that 
mournful  day  after  the  battle  gf  Chalgrove  Field, 
when  the  body  of  John  Hampden  was  brought  home. 
As  many  soldiers  as  could  be  spared  accompanied  it, 
marching  with  arms  reversed  and  muffled  drums, 
while,  with  uncovered  heads,  they  chanted  the  solemn 
words  of  comfort  that  begin  the  ninetieth  Psalm: 
"  Lprd,  Thou  hast  been  our  dwelling-place  in  all 
generations."  They  laid  him  in  a  grave  within  the 
chancel,  which  still  remains  unmarked;  it  is  close 
beside  the  slab  on  which  he  had  written  his  beauti- 
ful epitaph  to  his  wife.  When  they  marched  back 
beneath  the  beeches  their  voices  rang  out  with  the 
lines  of  Psalm  Forty-three :  "  Why  art  thou  cast 
down,  O  my  soul?  and  why  art  thou  disquieted 
within  me?  hope  in  God."  Says  a  writer  of  that 
time :  "  Never  were  heard  such  piteous  cries  at  the 
death  of  one  man,  as  at  Master  Hampden's." 

Within  the  spacious  mansion,  which  once  was  red 
brick  and  now  is  covered  with  gray  plaster,  are 
various  relics  of  Hampden  and  Cromwell,  and  a  por- 
trait of  Queen  Elizabeth  in  the  room  which  she 
occupied  on  her  visit  here.  Two  miles  further,  on 
one  of  the  finest  estates  in  the  county,  is  Chequer's 
Court,  an  imposing  brick  mansion  of  the  Tudor 


flMlton's 

period,  once  owned  by  Cromwell's  youngest  daughter 
and  her  husband.  It  stands  in  a  park,  and  contains 
the  greatest  collection  of  Cromwelliana  in  the  king- 
dom. But  these  and  the  Hampden  relics  owned 
by  the  Earl  of  Buckingham  at  Great  Hampden  are 
rarely  shown  to  visitors  who  do  not  apply  in  writing 
some  time  in  advance  of  their  visit.  It  is  to  be  hoped 
that  some  day  the  nation  may  own  these  and  make 
them  freely  accessible  to  all  scholars.  Through  a 
circuitous  drive  between  beautiful  fields  of  grain,  in 
view  of  the  Chiltern  Hills,  the  traveller  reaches  the 
old  parish  church  at  Great  Kimble,  where  John 
Hampden,  the  sturdy  cousin  of  Cromwell,  in  1635 
made  his  refusal  to  pay  King  Charles's  demands 
for  ship  money.  Near  by  lies  the  field  whose  tax 
was  in  question.  The  sum  was  paltry,  —  only- 
twenty  shillings,  —  but,  like  George  Third's  tax  on 
tea  in  the  colonies,  the  refusal  to  pay  it  meant  war 
in  the  end.  This  whole  section  of  beautiful  Bucks 
is  rich  with  memories  of  Milton,  and  of  the  men 
whom  he  knew  and  loved. 

Ellwood  records  that  "  when  the  city  was  cleansed 
and  become  safely  habitable,"  the  Miltons  returned 
to  Artillery  Walk.  This  must  have  been  about 
March,  1666.  The  open  fields  close  to  their  house 
had  been  filled  with  the  bodies  of  thousands  of  the 
plague  victims,  many  of  whom  were  uncoffined. 


120  flDilton's 

Thereafter  it  was  made  a  regular  cemetery,  and  was 
surrounded  with  a  brick  wall,  and  became  what 
Southey  called,  "  the  Campo  Santo  of  the  Dis- 
senters." On  a  side  street  near  by,  next  to  a  kind 
of  institutional  meeting-house  belonging  to  the 
Friends,  is  a  beautiful  green  inclosure  where  fourteen 
thousand  Quakers  lie  buried  in  unmarked  graves. 
One  humble  headstone  alone  marks  a  grave  near 
the  fence,  which  was  opened  in  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, and  was  found  to  be  that  of  Milton's  con- 
temporary, —  George  Fox,  —  the  tailor  with  the 
leather  suit,  who  founded  the  sect  of  the  uncompro- 
mising democrats  who  called  no  man  "  Lord,"  who 
used  no  weapons  but  their  tongues,  and  who  thun- 
dered with  them  to  such  purpose  as  to  make  men 
quake. 

While  Milton  was  on  the  point  of  publishing  his 
"  Paradise  Lost,"  another  calamity,  to  be  described 
later,  befell  the  stricken  city.  For  three  days  the 
Great  Fire  crackled  and  roared,  and  drove  man  and 
beast  before  its  fearful  heat  westward  to  Temple  Bar, 
and  swept  away  Milton's  birthplace,  which  he  still 
owned.  It  wiped  out  the  church  where  he  was  christ- 
ened, the  school  where  he  had  studied,  and  came  so 
far  north  as  almost  to  bury  his  father's  grave  under 
the  walls  of  St.  Giles's,  Cripplegate.  Amid  the 
horror  of  smoke  and  the  sound  of  distant  explosions 


jflDtlton's 

and  wild  confusion,  the  poet  sat  during  those  awful 
days,  when  it  seemed  as  if  the  fate  of  Sodom  had 
befallen  his  dear  London  town.  Up  to  that  date  his 
birthplace  had  been  visited  by  admiring  foreigners. 
This  was  the  only  real  estate  that  he  then  owned,  and 
its  loss  must  have  crippled  his  resources. 

The  precious  manuscript  of  "  Paradise  Lost  "  fell 
to  the  censorship  of  the  young  clergyman  of  twenty- 
eight,  who  had  married  Milton  to  his  youthful  wife, 
Elizabeth.  This  man,  named  Tomkyns,  like  Pobedo- 
nostzeff  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  later,  held  that 
liberty  of  conscience  was  a  "  highly  plausible  thing," 
but  did  not  work  well  in  practice,  and  he  came  near 
suppressing  the  volume,  so  tradition  says,  for  imagi- 
nary! treason  in  some  lines ;  but  he  relented,  and  the 
world  was  spared  its  greatest  epic  poem  since  the 
JEntid. 

The  many  booksellers  around  St.  Paul's  suffered 
terrible  losses,  and  Pepys  estimates  that  books  to  the 
value  of  £150,000  were  burnt  in  the  vicinity.  Most 
of  them  were  hurriedly  stowed  in  the  crypt  of  old 
St.  Paul's  Church,  but  when  the  walls  of  the  great 
cathedral  fell,  they  let  in  the  fire  which  consumed 
them.  In  April,  1667,  when  the  ruins  had  hardly 
ceased  smoking,  Milton  agreed,  for  £5  down 
and  three  times  as  much  at  certain  future  dates,  to 
sell  his  copyright  to  Samuel  Symons,  printer.  Thir- 


122  flDUton's 

teen  hundred  copies  constituted  the  edition.  Through 
the  days  of  dusty  turmoil  while  the  new  city  was 
slowly  rising  on  the  ashes  of  the  old,  the  proof-sheets 
passed  from  the  printing-press  in  Aldersgate  Street 
to  Artillery  Walk.  There  was  only  an  interruption 
of  five  anxious  days  in  June,  when  the  bugle  sounded, 
and  terrified  citizens  assembled  to  ward  off  the 
Dutch,  who,  bent  on  vengeance,  burnt  English  ships 
and  sent  cannon-balls  hurtling  at  English  forts.  In 
August  "  Paradise  Lost  "  appeared  as  a  rather  fine 
looking,  small  quarto  of  342  pages,  which  could 
be  bought  for  three  shillings  in  three  bookstores. 
For  artistic  purposes  the  poem  is  written  according 
to  the  Ptolemaic  theory  of  cosmos,  though  Milton 
of  course  accepted  the  Copernican  view. 

While  John  Milton  was  expecting  £15  or  £20 
for  his  work  of  more  than  seven  years,  John 
Dryden,  who  was  much  more  in  fashion  in 
those  days  of  Nell  Gwynne  and  the  reopened 
theatres,  was  receiving  a  yearly  income  of  £700. 
But  John  Dryden  knew  a  poet  when  he  read  him. 
After  reading  "  Paradise  Lost,"  he  exclaimed : 
"  This  man  cuts  us  all  out,  and  the  ancients,  too." 

About  1670,  Milton's  three  daughters  left  their 
father's  home.  Knowing  that  they  needed  to  be 
fitted  for  self-support,  he  paid  for  their  apprentice- 
ship, and  had  them  taught  embroidery  in  gold  and 


/HMlton's  Enalanfc  123 

silver.  Doubtless  bright  silks  and  gay  patterns  were 
much  more  to  their  mind  than  their  father's  folios, 
and  the  change  was  best  for  all  concerned.  Their 
father  sat  at  his  door  on  pleasant  days,  dressed  in 
his  gray  camblet  coat,  wearing  a  sword  with  a  small 
silver  hilt.  He  received  many  visitors  —  some  of 
them  men  of  rank  and  note. 

He  is  described  as  wearing  at  this  time  his  light 
brown  hair  parted  from  the  crown  to  the  middle  of 
the  forehead,  "  somewhat  flat,  long  and  waving,  a 
little  curled."  His  voice  was  musical  and  he  "  pro- 
nounced the  letter  r  very  hard."  He  rose  early, 
began  his  day  by  listening  to  the  Hebrew  Bible,  and 
spent  his  morning  listening  and  dictating.  Music, 
as  much  walking  as  his  gouty  feet  permitted,  and, 
in  the  evening,  a  smoke,  were  his  sole  recreations. 
He  belonged  to  no  church,  and  attended  no  service 
at  this  period. 

As  his  end  drew  near  he  told  his  brother  that 
he  left  only  the  residue  of  his  first  wife's  property 
to  their  three  daughters,  who  had  "  been  very  un- 
dutiful ;  "  but  everything  else  to  his  "  loving  wife, 
Elizabeth."  Just  one  month  before  he  had  com- 
pleted his  sixty-sixth  year,  John  Milton  died  on  a 
Sunday  night,  November  8,  1674.  He  was  buried 
beside  his  father  in  St.  Giles's,  Cripplegate,  and  was 
followed  to  the  grave  by  many  friends.  What 


/Baton's 

hymns  were  sung  we  do  not  know,  but  certainly 
none  could  more  fitly  have  been  sung  than  that  noble 
one  by  his  dear  friend,  Sir  Henry  Wotton : 

"  How  blessed  is  he  born  or  taught 
Who  serveth  not  another's  will, 
Whose  armour  is  his  honest  thought, 
And  simple  truth  his  highest  skill. 


"  This  man  is  freed  from  servile  bands, 

Of  hope  to  rise  or  fear  to  fall ; 
Lord  of  himself,  though  not  of  lands, 
And  having  nothing,  yet  hath  all." 

Milton's  wife  was  thirty-six  years  old  when  the 
poet  died.  She  lived  to  be  nearly  eighty-nine  years 
old,  but  never  remarried.  Deborah  lived  until  1727, 
when  Voltaire  writes :  "  I  was  in  London  when  it 
became  known  that  a  daughter  of  blind  Milton  was 
still  alive,  old  and  in  poverty,  and  in  a  quarter  of 
an  hour  she  was  rich."  The  latest  descendants  of 
John  and  Christopher  Milton  died  about  the  middle 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  but  their  sister  Anne's 
posterity  may  perhaps  be  traced  to-day. 

The  forgotten  Duke  of  York  has  his  great  column 
in  Waterloo  Place.  The  scholarly  but  uninspired 
Prince  Consort  has  his  gorgeous  Memorial,  and  a 
hundred  nobodies  have  their  lofty  monuments  scat- 
tered all  over  England,  teaching  the  rising  genera- 


flMlton's  J£n0lan&  125 


tion  their  fathers'  estimation  of  the  relative  worth 
of  names  in  England's  history.  The  only  statue  of 
Milton  known  to  me  in  England,  except  the  one 
on  the  London  University  Building,  is  the  modest 
figure  which  stands,  together  with  Shakespeare  and 
Chaucer,  upon  a  fountain  in  Park  Lane  opposite 
Hyde  Park. 

No  student  of  the  period  which  is  treated  in  this 
little  volume  should  fail  to  visit  the  upper  floor  of 
the  National  Portrait  Gallery,  and  view  the  por- 
traits of  the  many  rioted  men  who  were  Milton's 
contemporaries.  Besides  portraits  of  the  royal 
families,  he  will  note  those  of  William  Harvey, 
Samuel  Pepys,  Cowley,  old  Parr,  Sir  Henry  Vane, 
Andrew  Marvell,  Cromwell  and  his  daughter,  Inigo 
Jones,  Selden,  Sir  Julius  Caesar,  Samuel  Butler, 
Hobbes,  Dryden,  Ireton,  Algernon  Sidney,  Sir 
Christopher  Wren,  and  the  Chandos  Shakespeare 
portrait.  Milton's  own  portrait  in  middle  life,  which 
is  little  known,  is  most  impressive,  and  very  different 
from  the  common  portraits. 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

THE    TOWER. TOWER    HILL 

IXCEPT  Westminster  Abbey,  no  spot  in 
England  is  so  connected  with  every  phase 
of  England's  history  as  is  the  Tower  of 
London.  A  map,  printed  in  the  generation  before 
Milton,  shows  us  the  ancient  moat  full  of  water,  and 
the  space  within  its  walls  that  now  is  gravelled  then 
covered  with  greensward.  North  of  St.  Peter's  little 
church,  where  lay  the  bones  of  Anne  Boleyn, 
stretched  a  row  of  narrow  gabled  houses  like  those 
seen  in  the  neighbouring  London  streets.  The 
White  Tower,  built  by  William  the  Conqueror, 
stands  to-day  practically  as  it  stood  in  William's 
time  and  Milton's.  Built  of  durable  flint  stones,  it 
has  withstood  time's  decay  as  few  other  buildings 
erected  far  more  recently  have  done,  when  they  were 
of  the  soft,  disintegrating  quality  of  stone  so  often 
used  in  London.  True,  Christopher  Wren  faced 
the  windows  with  stone  in  the  Italian  style,  and 

somewhat  modernised  the  exterior,  but  the  interior 

126 


flbilton's  Englanfc  127 

remains  practically  as  it  was  built  over  eight  hun- 
dred years  ago. 

As  there  is  no  need  of  duplicating  here  the  main 
facts  about  its  history,  which  are  to  be  found  in  every 
guide-book,  let  us  confine  ourselves  to  the  chief 
literary  and  historical  associations  with  it,  that  must 
have  appealed  to  the  boy  and  man,  John  Milton. 

One  can  imagine  few  things  more  exciting  and 
stimulating  to  the  mind  of  an  observant  boy  in 
1620  than  a  visit  to  the  Tower.  In  the  days  when 
circuses  were  unknown,  and  menageries  of  strange 
beasts  were  a  rare  sight,  the  view  of  such  behind  the 
grated  walls  of  Lion's  Tower  must  have  delighted 
any  London  lad.  The  wild  beasts  were  not  very 
numerous,  —  only  a  few  lions  and  leopards  and  "  cat 
lions,"  —  but  no  doubt  they  were  as  satisfactory  as 
the  modern  "  Zoo  "  to  eyes  that  were  unsatiated 
with  such  novelties.  Whether  small  boys  were  al- 
lowed for  sixpence  to  see  the  rich  display  of  state 
jewels  is  not  quite  clear,  yet  it  is  certain  that  they 
were  shown  to  strangers. 

Says  that  indefatigable  antiquarian,  Stow,  whose 
old  age  almost  touched  the  babyhood  of  Milton: 
"  This  Tower  is  a  citadel  to  defend  or  command  the 
city;  a  royal  palace  for  assemblies  or  treaties;  a 
prison  of  state  for  the  most  dangerous  offenders; 
the  only  place  of  coinage  for  all  England  at  the 


128  /HMlton's  England 

time;  the  armory  for  warlike  provisions;  the  treas- 
ury of  the  ornaments  and  jewels  of  the  Crown ;  and 
general  conserver  of  the  records  of  the  king's  courts 
of  justice  at  Westminster." 

In  Milton's  boyhood,  the  royal  palace  in  the  south- 
east corner  of  the  inclosure  was  standing.  But  in 
his  manhood,  his  staunch  friend,  Oliver,  having  got 
possession,  it  was  pulled  down.  The  little  Norman 
chapel  of  St.  John,  within  the  Tower,  is  one  of  the 
best  bits  of  Norman  work  now  extant  in  England. 
Its  triforium,  which  extends  over  the  aisles  and  semi- 
circular east  end,  probably  was  used  in  ancient  days 
to  permit  the  queen  and  her  ladies  to  attend  the 
celebration  of  the  mass,  unseen  by  the  congregation 
below.  The  chapel  was  dismantled  before  Milton's 
time.  But  doubtless  as  he  entered  it  he  could  pic- 
ture in  it,  more  vividly  than  we  in  our  later  age,  that 
scene  when  from  sunset  until  sunrise  forty-six  noble- 
men and  gentlemen  knelt  and  watched  their  armour, 
before  King  Henry  IV.,  on  the  next  day,  bestowed 
upon  them  the  newly  created  Order  of  the  Bath. 

In  this  chapel,  while  he  was  kneeling  in  prayer, 
the  lieutenant  of  the  Tower  received  an  order  to 
murder  the  young  Edward  V.  and  his  brother,  and 
refused  to  obey  it.  Here  Queen  Mary  attended  mass 
for  her  brother,  Edward  VI. 

In  the  present  armory,  once  the  council  chamber, 


flMlton's  En^la^  129 


King  Richard  II.  was  released  from  prison,  and 
sceptre  in  hand  and  the  crown  on  his  head,  abdicated 
in  favour  of  Henry  IV.  Shakespeare  thus  depicts 
the  scene,  and  puts  the  following  words  into  the 
mouth  of  the  mournful  king  : 

"  I  give  this  heavy  weight  from  off  my  head, 
And  this  unwieldy  sceptre  from  my  hand, 
The  pride  of  kingly  sway  from  out  my  heart; 
With  mine  own  tears  I  wash  away  my  balm, 
With  mine  own  hands  I  give  away  my  crown, 
With  mine  own  tongue  deny  my  sacred  state, 
With  mine  own  breath  release  all  duteous  oaths, 
My  manors,  rents,  revenues  I  forego  ; 
My  acts,  decrees,  and  statutes  I  deny. 
God  pardon  all  oaths  that  are  broke  to  me, 
God  keep  all  oaths  unbroke  are  made  to  thee. 
Make  me  that  nothing  have  with  nothing  grieved, 
And  thou  with  all  pleased  that  hath  all  achieved  ! 
Long  may'st  thou  live  in  Richard's  seat  to  sit, 
And  soon  lie  Richard  in  an  earthen  pit! 
God  save  King  Henry,  unkinged  Richard  says, 
And  send  him  many  years  of  sunshine  days  !  " 

On  this  same  spot,  in  1483,  the  Protector,  after- 
ward Richard  III.,  came  in  among  the  lords  in 
council,  and  asked  the  Bishop  of  Ely  to  send  to 
his  gardens  in  Ely  Place,  off  Holborn,  for  some 
strawberries.  The  terror  which  royalty  inspired  — 
and  with  good  reason  in  that  day  —  is  well  described 
by  Sir  Thomas  More,  who  was  himself  a  prisoner  in 


130  flMlton's 

less  than  a  half  century  after  the  scene  which  he 
so  graphically  describes : 

"  He  returned  into  the  chamber,  among  them,  all 
changed,  with  a  wonderful  sour,  angry  countenance, 
knitting  the  brows,  frowning  and  frothing  and 
gnawing  of  the  lips;  and  so  sat  him  down  in  his 
place,  all  the  lords  much  dismayed  and  sore  mar- 
velling of  this  manner  of  sudden  change,  and  what 
thing  should  him  ail."  Then  asking  what  should 
be  the  punishment  of  those  who  conspired  against 
his  life,  and  being  told  that  they  should  be  punished 
as  traitors,  he  then  accused  his  brother's  wife  and 
his  own  wife.  "  '  Then,'  said  the  Protector,"  con- 
tinues More,  "  '  ye  shall  see  in  what  wise  that  sorcer- 
ess and  that  other  witch  .  .  .  have  by  their  sorcery 
and  witchcraft  wasted  my  body ! '  And  therewith 
he  plucked  up  his  doublet  sleeve  to  his  elbow  upon 
his  left  arm,  and  he  shewed  a  werish  withered  arm, 
and  small  as  it  was  never  other.  And  thereupon 
every  man's  mind  sore  misgave  him,  well  perceiving 
that  this  matter  was  but  a  quarrel  ...  no  man  was 
there  present  but  well  knew  that  his  arm  was  ever 
such  since  his  birth.  Nevertheless  the  lord  chamber- 
lain answered,  and  said :  '  Certainly,  my  lord,  if  they 
have  so  heinously  done  they  be  worthy  heinous  pun- 
ishment.' *  What,'  quoth  the  Protector,  *  thou  serv- 
est  me  ill  with  ifs  and  with  ands;  I  tell  thee  they 


flDUton'8  England  131 

have  so  done,  and  that  I  will  make  good  on  thy 
body,  traitor!  ...  I  will  not  to  dinner  until  I  see 
ihy  head  off.'  Within  an  hour,  the  lord  chamber- 
lain's head  rolled  in  the  dust." 

The  author  of  the  "  Utopia,"  being  a  knight,  was 
leniently  treated  while  in  the  Tower.  He  paid 
ten  shillings  a  week  for  himself  and  five  shillings 
for  his  servant.  Occasionally  his  friends  came  to 
see  him,  and  urged  in  vain  that  he  should  propitiate 
Henry  VIII.  and  his  wife,  Anne  Boleyn,  against 
whose  marriage  he  had  objected.  But  he  remained 
immovable.  "  Is  not  this  house  as  nigh  heaven  as 
my  own  ?  "  he  asked,  serenely,  when  wife  and  daugh- 
ters pleaded  with  him  to  reconsider.  Lady  More 
petitioned  Henry  for  her  husband's  pardon,  on  the 
ground  of  his  illness  and  her  poverty ;  she  had  been 
forced  to  sell  her  clothing  to  pay  her  husband's  fees 
in  prison.  But  Henry  had  no  mercy  on  the  gentle 
scholar,  the  greatest  English  genius  of  his  day,  and 
who  had  been  lord  chancellor  of  England. 

For  a  time  he  was  allowed  to  write,  but  later, 
books  and  writing  materials  were  removed;  yet  he 
occasionally  succeeded  in  writing  to  his  wife  and 
daughter  Margaret  on  scraps  of  paper  with  pieces 
of  coal.  "  Thenceforth,"  says  his  biographer,  "  he 
caused  the  shutters  of  his  cell  to  be  closed,  and  spent 
most  of  his  time  in  the  dark." 


132  flDUton's  England 

When  the  end  came,  his  sentence  to  be  hanged  at 
Tyburn  was  commuted  by  the  king  to  beheadal  at 
Tower  Hill.  Cheerful,  and  even  with  a  tone  of  jest, 
he  said  to  the  lieutenant  on  the  scaffold,  "  I  pray 
thee,  see  me  safely  up,  and  for  my  coming  down,  let 
me  shift  for  myself."  He  removed  his  beard  from 
the  block,  saying,  "  it  had  never  committed  treason," 
and  told  the  bystanders  that  he  died  "  in  and  for  the 
faith  of  the  Catholic  Church,"  and  prayed  God  to 
send  the  king  good  counsel.  More's  body  was  buried 
in  St.  Peter's  Church,  where  that  of  the  fair  young 
Anne  Boleyn  herself  was  soon  to  lie.  His  head, 
after  the  savage  custom  of  the  time,  was  parboiled 
and  affixed  to  a  pole  on  London  Bridge. 

Dark  and  bloody  were  the  associations  that  centre 
around  the  Tower  in  the  century  preceding  Milton's. 
Few  of  these  have  touched  the  popular  heart  more 
than  those  which  cluster  around  the  girl-queen  of 
nine  days  —  the  fair  Lady  Jane  Grey.  In  the  Brick 
Tower,  where  she  was  imprisoned,  she  wrote  her  last 
brave,  pathetic  words  to  her  father  and  sister  upon 
the  leaves  of  her  Greek  Testament.  From  her  prison 
window  she  saw  the  headless  body  of  her  boy- 
husband  pass  by  in  a  cart  from  Tower  Hill,  and 
cried  :  "  Oh,  Guildford !  Guildford !  the  antepast 
is  not  so  bitter  that  thou  hast  tasted,  and  which  I 
soon  shall  taste,  as  to  make  my  flesh  tremble;  it 


flDilton's  England  133 

is  nothing  compared  with  that  feast  of  which  we 
shall  partake  this  day  in  heaven." 

When  she  was  ready  to  lay  her  fair  young  head 
upon  the  block,  she  cried :  "  I  pray  you  all,  good 
Christian  people,  to  bear  me  witness  that  I  die 
a  true  Christian  woman."  "  Then  tied  she  the 
handkerchief  about  her  eyes,  and  feeling  for  the 
block,  she  said,  '  What  shall  I  do  ?  Wrhere  is  it  ? ' 
One  of  the  standers-by  guiding  her  thereunto,  she 
laid  her  head  down  upon  the  block,  and  then 
stretched  forth  her  body,  and  said :  '  Lord,  into 
thy  hands  I  commend  my  spirit.' '  So  perished  this 
girl  of  eighteen,  whose  beauty,  learning,  and  tragic 
fate  make  her  one  of  the  most  pathetic  figures  in 
history. 

The  most  interesting  parts  of  the  Tower,  includ- 
ing St.  Peter's  Church,  the  dungeons,  Raleigh's  cell, 
and  the  spot  where  he  wrote  his  "  History  of  the 
World,"  are  not  shown  to  ordinary  visitors.  They 
can  be  seen,  however,  by  the  receipt  of  a  written 
order  from  the  Constable  of  the  Tower,  and  should 
not  be  missed  by  any  student  of  English  history. 
Even  a  few  moments  spent  in  those  dark  lower  vaults 
help  the  torpid  imagination  of  those  who  live  in 
freedom  as  cheap  and  common  as  the  air  they 
breathe  to  realise  through  what  horror  and  bloody 
sweat  of  brave  men  and  women  in  the  past  his  free- 


134  /HMlton's  England 

dom  has  been  bought.  Though  these  dungeons 
now  are  clean  and  a  few  modern  openings  through 
the  massive  walls  admit  some  feeble  rays  of  light, 
it  is  not  difficult  to  conjure  up  the  black  darkness, 
filth,,  and  vermin,  and  noisome  odours  of  the  past, 
or  the  shrieks  of  saint  or  sinner,  who,  like  Anne 
Askew  and  Guy  Fawkes,  suffered  upon  the  rack. 
Only  two  years  before  Milton's  birth,  the  conspira- 
tors of  the  Gunpowder  Plot  were  immured  in  these 
dungeons,  and  then  hanged,  cut  down,  and  dis- 
embowelled while  they  were  still  living. 

In  Milton's  youth,  in  1630,  while  he  was  writing 
Latin  verses  at  Christ's  College,  Cambridge,  that 
brave,  heroic,  noble  soul,  Sir  John  Eliot,  was  com- 
mitted to  the  Tower.  Those  were  sad  days  for 
England.  Free  speech  in  Parliament  was  throttled. 
The  nation's  ancient  liberties  were  in  jeopardy. 
Says  the  historian,  Green :  "  The  early  struggle  for 
Parliamentary  liberty  centres  in  the  figure  of  Sir 
John  Eliot.  .  .  .  He  was  now  in  the  first  vigour 
of  manhood,  with  a  mind  exquisitely  cultivated, 
and  familiar  with  the  poetry  and  learning  of  his  day, 
a  nature  singularly  lofty  and  devout,  a  fearless  and 
vehement  temperament.  But  his  intellect  was  as 
clear  and  cool  as  his  temper  was  ardent.  What  he 
believed  in  was  the  English  Parliament.  He  saw 
in  it  the  collective  wisdom  of  the  realm,  and  in  that 


/IDUton's  England  135 

wisdom  he  put  a  firmer  trust  than  in  the  statecraft 
of  kings."  Of  the  memorable  scene  in  Parliament 
in  which  he  moved  the  presentation  to  the  king  of  a 
remonstrance,  in  the  session  of  1628,  a  letter  of 
the  times  gives  a  description.  By  royal  orders  the 
Speaker  of  the  House  stopped  him,  and  Eliot  sat 
abruptly  down  amid  the  solemn  silence  of  the  mem- 
bers. "  Then  appeared  such  a  spectacle  of  passions 
as  the  like  had  seldom  been  seen  in  such  an  assembly ; 
some  weeping,  some  expostulating,  some  prophesy- 
ing of  the  fatal  ruin  of  our  kingdom,  some  playing 
the  divines  in  confessing  their  sins  and  country's 
sins.  .  .  .  There  were  above  an  hundred  weeping 
eyes,  many  who  offered  to  speak  being  interrupted 
and  silenced  by  their  own  passions." 

Says  President  Theodore  Roosevelt  of  Sir  John 
Eliot :  "  He  took  his  stand  firmly  on  the  ground  that 
the  king  was  not  the  master  of  Parliament,  and  of 
course  this  could  but  mean  ultimately  that  Parlia- 
ment was  master  of  the  king.  In  other  words,  he 
was  one  of  the  earliest  leaders  of  the  movement 
which  has  produced  English  freedom  and  English 
government  as  we  now  know  them.  He  was  also 
its  martyr.  He  was  kept  in  the  Tower,  without  air 
or  exercise,  for  three  years,  the  king  vindictively 
refusing  to  allow  the  slightest  relaxation  in  his  con- 
finement, even  when  it  brought  on  consumption. 


136  /IDUton's  EnglanD 

In  December,  1632,  he  died;  and  the  king's  hatred 
found  its  last  expression  in  denying  to  his  kinsfolk 
the  privilege  of  burying  him  in  his  Cornish  home." 

At  last  the  "  man  of  blood,"  who  had  tried  to 
wrest  England's  liberties,  himself  perished  upon  the 
scaffold  at  Whitehall,  and  in  his  condemnation  the 
same  author  cites  his  treatment  of  Sir  John  Eliot  as 
one  of  his  greatest  crimes.  "  Justice  was  certainly 
done,  and  until  the  death  penalty  is  abolished  for  all 
malefactors,  we  need  waste  scant  sympathy  on  the 
man  who  so  hated  the  upholders  of  freedom  that 
his  vengeance  against  Eliot  could  be  satisfied  only 
with  Eliot's  death;  who  so  utterly  lacked  loyalty, 
that  he  signed  the  death-warrant  of  Strafford  when 
Strafford  had  merely  done  his  bidding;  who  had 
made  the  blood  of  Englishmen  flow  like  water,  to 
establish  his  right  to  rule;  and  who,  with  incurable 
duplicity,  incurable  double-dealing,  had  sought  to 
turn  the  generosity  of  his  victorious  foes  to  their 
own  hurt." 

These  grisly  tales  of  executions  and  of  scenes  of 
fortitude  we  close  with  a  few  words  on  that  valiant, 
noble  soul,  Sir  Harry  Vane,  to  whom  Milton  dedi- 
cated the  well-known  sonnet  beginning :  "  Vane, 
young  in  years,  but  in  sage  counsel  old." 

Speaking  before  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  of  Harvard 
University,  Wendell  Phillips,  America's  silver- 


flDtlton's  JEnQlanfc  137 

tongued  orator,  uttered  a  memorable  word  upon  the 
man  whose  governorship  of  Massachusetts  for  two 
years  of  its  infant  history  makes  the  name  of  Vane 
for  ever  dear  to  the  American  descendants  of  the 
Puritans : 

"...  Roger  Williams  and  Sir  Harry  Vane,  the 
two  men  deepest  in  thought  and  bravest  in  speech  of 
all  who  spoke  English  in  their  day,  and  equal  to  any 
in  practical  statesmanship.  Sir  Harry  Vane  —  in 
my  judgment  the  noblest  human  being  who  ever 
walked  the  streets  of  yonder  city  —  I  do  not  forget 
Franklin  or  Sam  Adams,  Washington  or  Fayette, 
Garrison  or  John  Brown.  But  Vane  dwells  an 
arrow's  flight  above  them  all,  and  his  touch  conse- 
crated the  continent  to  measureless  toleration  of 
opinion  and  entire  equality  of  rights.  We  are  told 
we  can  find  in  Plato  '  all  the  intellectual  life  of 
Europe  for  two  thousand  years.'  So  you  can  find  in 
Vane  the  pure  gold  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  years 
of  American  civilisation,  with  no  particle  of  its 
dross.  Plato  would  have  welcomed  him  to  the 
Academy,  and  Fenelon  kneeled  with  him  at  the  altar. 
He  made  Somers  and  John  Marshall  possible ;  like 
Carnot,  he  organised  victory;  and  Milton  pales 
before  him  in  the  stainlessness  of  his  record.  He 
stands  among  English  statesmen  preeminently  the 
representative,  in  practice  and  in  theory,  of  serene 


138  flDilton's  Englanfc 

faith  in  the  safety  of  trusting  truth  wholly  to  her 
own  defence.  For  other  men  we  walk  backward, 
and  throw  over  their  memories  the  mantle  of  charity 
and  excuse,  saying  reverently,  '  Remember  the  temp- 
tation and  the  age.'  But  Vane's  ermine  has  no  stain ; 
no  act  of  his  needs  explanation  or  apology;  and  in 
thought  he  stands  abreast  of  the  age  —  like  pure 
intellect,  belongs  to  all  time.  Carlyle  said,  in  years 
when  his  words  were  worth  heeding,  '  Young  men, 
close  your  Byron  and  open  your  Goethe.'  If  my 
counsel  had  weight  in  these  halls,  I  should  say, 
'  Young  men,  close  your  John  Winthrop  and  Wash- 
ington, your  Jefferson  and  Webster,  and  open  Sir 
Harry  Vane.'  It  was  the  generation  that  knew  Vane 
who  gave  to  our  Alma  Mater  for  a  seal  the  simple 
pledge,  Veritas."  —  Wendell  Phillips,  in  his  Har- 
vard address  on  the  "  Scholar  in  the  Republic." 

To  the  profligate  Charles  II.  few  men  must  have 
seemed  more  dangerous  than  the  man  who  had 
dared  to  teach  that  the  king  had  three  "  superiors, 
God,  Law,  and  Parliament."  The  man  who  had 
once  walked  through  the  stately  halls  of  Raby  Castle 
as  its  master  found  a  Tower  cell  his  last  earthly 
abiding-place. 

When  Sir  Harry  Vane  was  arraigned  as  a  "  false 
traitor,"  he  made  his  own  defence,  well  knowing 
what  the  end  would  be,  but  determined,  for  the  sake 


/IMlton's  England  139 

of  England  and  the  cause  he  loved,  to  put  his  plea  on 
record.  For  ten  hours  he  fought  for  his  life  without 
refreshment,  then  later,  in  his  prison,  wrote  out  the 
substance  of  his  plea.  Though,  as  his  biographer 
relates.  "  he  had  torn  to  pieces  as  if  they  were  so 
much  rotten  thread  the  legal  meshes  in  which  his 
hunters  sought  to  hold  him  fast,"  his  doom  was 
sealed.  Something  was  gained  when  the  original 
sentence  of  hideous  torture  and  dismemberment  was 
commuted  into  simple  beheading.  The  day  before 
his  execution,  Vane  said  to  his  children :  "  Resolve 
to  suffer  anything  from  men  rather  than  sin  against 
God.  ...  I  can  willingly  leave  this  place  and  out- 
ward enjoyments,  for  those  I  shall  meet  with  here- 
after in  a  better  country.  I  have  made  it  my 
business  to  acquaint  myself  with  the  society  of 
Heaven.  Be  not  you  troubled,  for  I  am  going  home 
to  my  Father." 

"  As  one  goes  through  Eastcheap  to-day,  out 
upon  the  open  space  of  Tower  Hill,  he  finds  himself 
among  prosaic  surroundings.  Over  the  pavement 
rattles  the  traffic  from  the  great  London  docks  close 
at  hand.  High  warehouses  rise  at  the  side;  the 
sooty  trail  of  steamers  pollutes  the  air  toward  the 
river.  In  one  direction,  however,  the  view  has  sug- 
gestions the  reverse  of  commonplace.  Looking 
thither  the  sensitive  beholder  feels  with  deep  emotion 


i4°  /BMlton's  JEnglant) 

the  fact  brought  home  to  him,  that  to  men  of  Eng- 
lish speech,  the  earth  has  scarcely  a  spot  more  mem- 
orable than  the  ground  where  he  is  standing. 
There  rise,  as  they  have  risen  for  eight  hundred 
years,  the  gray  walls  of  the  Tower,  —  the  moat  in 
the  foreground,  the  battlemented  line  of  masonry 
behind ;  within,  the  white  keep,  with  its  four  turrets. 
.  .  .  As  mothers  have  shed  tears  there  for  impris- 
oned children,  so  children  standing  there  have  won- 
dered which  blocks  in  the  grim  masonry  covered 
the  dungeons  of  their  fathers  and  mothers.  Again 
and  again,  too,  through  the  ages,  all  London  has 
gathered,  waiting  in  a  hush  for  the  dropping  of  the 
drawbridge  before  the  Byward  Tower,  and  the  com- 
ing forth  of  the  mournful  train,  conducting  some 
world-famous  man  to  the  block  draped  with  black, 
on  the  scaffold  to  the  left,  where  the  hill  is  highest. 
.  .  .  On  the  1 4th  of  June  in  1662  in  the  full  glory 
of  the  summer,  Vane,  in  the  strength  of  his  man- 
hood, was  brought  forth  to  die."  Thus  writes 
James  K.  Hosmer  in  his  scholarly  biography  of 
Vane.  He  quotes  an  eye-witness,  who  relates  how 
cheerfully  and  readily  Vane  went  from  his  chamber 
to  the  sledge  which  took  him  to  the  scaffold,  and 
how  "  from  the  tops  of  houses,  and  out  of  windows, 
the  people  used  such  means  and  gestures  as  might 
best  discover,  at  a  distance,  their  respects  and  love 


flDilton's 

to  him,  crying  aloud,  '  The  Lord  go  with  you,  the 
great  God  of  Heaven  and  Earth  appear  in  you 
and  for  you.'  When  asked  how  he  did,  he  answered, 
'  Never  better  in  my  life.'  Loud  were  the  acclama- 
tions of  the  people,  crying  out,  '  The  Lord  Jesus 
go  with  your  dear  soul.' '  As  Vane  stepped  upon 
the  scaffold,  clad  in  a  black  suit  and  cloak  and  scarlet 
\\aistcoat,  a  silence  fell,  and  calmly,  serenely,  he 
addressed  the  throng  around  him.  His  address  dis- 
pleased the  officers,  and  the  trumpets  were  com- 
manded to  silence  him.  His  words,  however,  had 
been  well  prepared  and  delivered  in  writing  to  a 
friend,  so  that  the  world  to-day  knows  with  what 
dignity  and  truth  he  spoke.  His  prayer,  however, 
was  not  thus  broken.  "  Thy  servant,  that  is  now 
falling  asleep,  doth  heartily  desire  of  thee,  that  thou 
shouldst  forgive  his  enemies,  and  not  lay  this  sin 
to  their  charge.  ...  I  bless  the  Lord  that  I  have 
not  deserted  the  righteous  cause  for  which  I  suffer." 
The  heads  of  Cromwell  and  Bradshaw  hung  on 
the  poles  of  Westminster  Hall  when  Vane's  fell. 
Blake's  and  Ireton's  bodies  had  been  flung  into  dis- 
honoured graves.  Pym  and  Hampden  had  died 
early  in  the  civil  strife.  Algernon  Sidney  was  to 
be  a  later  victim.  In  Jewin  Street  the  blind  Milton 
was  solacing  himself  in  an  uncertain  seclusion  and 
quietude,  with  the  preparation  of  his  "  Paradise 


142  rtMlton's 

Lost."  Everything  the  Puritans  had  stood  for 
seemed  eclipsed.  But  the  truths  these  men  had  lived 
and  died  for  could  not  die.  Says  Lowell,  writing 
for  his  countrymen :  "It  was  the  red  dint  on 
Charles's  block  that  marked  one  in  our  era." 

The  reign  of  the  Stuarts  was  doomed,  and  the 
Nemesis  of  what  they  stood  for  was  assured.  Says 
John  Richard  Green :  "  England  for  the  last  two 
hundred  years  has  done  little  more  than  carry  out  in 
a  slow  and  tentative  way,  but  very  surely,  the  pro- 
gramme laid  down  by  Vane  and  his  friends  at  the 
close  of  the  Civil  War."  It  was  government  of 
the  people,  by  the  people,  for  the  people,  for  which 
Vane  and  Washington  and  Lincoln  lived.  Without 
the  foresight  and  the  valour  of  the  brave  man  who 
died  on  Tower  Hill  the  work  accomplished  by  the 
two  later  heroes  might  not  have  been  assured. 


CHAPTER    IX. 

ALL  HALLOWS,  BARKING.  —  ST.  OLAVE's.  —  ST. 
CATHERINE  CREE's.  —  ST.  ANDREW  UNDER- 
SHAFT 

;T  the  end  of  Great  Tower  Street  is  the 
church  of  All  Hallows,  Barking,  anciently 
known  as  "  Berkynge  Church  by  the 
Tower."  The  edifice,  which  is  situated  close  to 
Mark  Lane  Station  on  the  Metropolitan  Railway, 
ranks  as  the  oldest  parish  church  with  a  continuous 
history  as  such  in  the  city  of  London.  One  hundred 
and  fifty  years  before  the  union  of  the  seven  king- 
doms under  Egbert,  over  four  hundred  years  before 
the  Conqueror  and  the  building  of  the  White  Tower, 
a  thousand  years  before  the  boy  Milton  visited  its 
historic  site,  the  foundation  of  the  church  was  laid. 
For  six  hundred  years  a  close  connection  existed 
between  the  court  and  this  church  when  the  Tower 
was  a  royal  residence. 

Some  traces  of  old  Norman  work  remain,  but  the 
present  building  belongs  to  the  Perpendicular  type, 

»43 


144  flDilton's 

and  assumed  nearly  its  present  shape  about  one 
hundred  years  before  Milton's  age. 

From  its  nearness  to  the  Tower,  the  church  be- 
came the  burial-place  of  some  of  its  victims.  Here 
was  placed  the  headless  body  of  Lord  Thomas 
Grey,  uncle  of  Lady  Jane,  who  was  beheaded  in 
1554  for  taking  part  in  the  rebellion  under  Wyatt. 
The  heart  of  Richard  the  Lion  Heart  was  once 
placed  under  its  high  altar.  After  his  execution  on 
Tower  Hill,  the  body  of  Archbishop  Laud  rested 
here  some  years,  and  was  "  accompanied  to  earth 
with  great  multitudes  of  people,  whom  love  or 
curiosity  or  remorse  of  conscience  had  drawn  to- 
gether, and  decently  interred  .  .  .  according  to  the 
rites  and  ceremonies  of  the  Church  of  England,  in 
which  it  may  be  noted  as  a  remarkable  thing,  that 
being,  whilst  he  lived,  the  greatest  champion  of  the 
Common  Prayer  Book  ...  he  had  the  honour, 
being  dead,  to  be  buried  in  the  form  therein  pro- 
vided, after  it  had  been  long  disused  and  almost 
reprobated  in  most  of  the  churches  of  London." 

Two  hundred  and  fifty  years  later  an  Archbishop 
Laud  Commemoration  was  celebrated  here,  and 
where  the  scaffold  stood  on  Tower  Hill  services 
were  held. 

The  chief  interest  of  the  church  for  American  vis- 
itors may  be  the  baptismal  register,  in  which  is 


/IMlton's  Enalanfc  145 

recorded  the  baptism,  during  Milton's  early  man- 
hood, of  Sir  William  Penn's  infant  son,  the  apostle 
of  peace,  who  was  destined  to  found  a  great  state 
in  the  New  World.  The  Great  Fire  of  1666  touched 
the  church  so  closely  that  Pepys  tells  us  the  "  dyall 
and  part  of  the  porch  was  burnt."  Its  interior  is 
beautifully  preserved.  Its  old  brasses  attract  so 
many  who  desire  to  make  rubbings  that  a  snug  sum 
tor  church  purposes  has  been  raised  by  the  small 
fees  charged.  The  church  possesses  the  oldest 
indenture  for  the  construction  of  an  organ  known 
in  England.  Its  date  is  1519. 

On  the  south  side  of  Tower  Street,  at  number  48, 
wras  formerly  a  public  house  painted  with  the  head 
of  the  Czar  of  Muscovy.  Here  Peter  the  Great, 
when  he  was  studying  the  dockyards  and  maritime 
establishments  of  England  under  William  III.,  used 
to  resort  with  his  attendants  and  smoke  his  pipe 
and  drink  beer  and  brandy.  Near  by  is  Muscovy 
Court,  a  present  reminder  of  the  ancient  name. 

A  little  farther  north,  on  Hart  Street,  once  stood 
the  richly  decorated  timber  house,  called  "  Whit- 
tington's  Palace."  According  to  doubtful  tradition 
this  was  where  the  famous  Dick  Whittington,  with 
princely  magnanimity,  burnt  the  royal  bond  for  a 
debt  of  £60,000,  when  Henry  V.  and  his  queen  came 
to  dine  with  him.  ''  Never  had  king  such  a  subject," 


146  flDtlton's  England 

Henry  is  reported  to  have  said,  when  Whittington 
replied  to  the  hero  of  Agincourt,  "  Surely,  Sire, 
never  had  subject  such  a  king."  This  palace,  with 
its  whole  front  of  diamond-paned  windows,  stood 
in  Milton's  time. 

Near  by,  on  Hart  Street,  is  the  church  of  St. 
Olave,  which  with  All  Hallows,  Barking,  escaped 
the  Great  Fire,  and  stands  as  it  stood  in  Milton's 
life.  The  tourist  must  time  his  visit  to  it  on  a 
week  day  to  the  noon  hour,  as,  unlike  All  Hallows, 
Barking,  it  is  not  open  all  day. 

The  monastery  of  the  Crutched  Friars  must  have 
covered  in  ancient  days  a  large  part  of  the  parish 
of  this  church.  Its  dimensions  are  of  the  smallest 
—  it  is  only  fifty-four  feet  long.  Its  name  takes 
us  back  to  the  times  of  the  Danish  settlement,  for 
St.  Olave  is  but  the  corruption  of  St.  Olaf.  the 
Norwegian  saint  who  was  the  martyred  king  of 
the  Northmen.  The  body  of  this  saint  rests  in 
the  great  cathedral  at  Trondheim,  Norway.  His 
history  is  closely  connected  with  the  immediate 
region.  As  a  boy  of  twelve  he  started  on  his  career 
as  viking;  later  he  fought  with  Ethelred  against 
the  usurping  Danes  in  London.  The  latter  held 
the  bridge  which  connected  the  walled  town  with 
low-lying  Southwark  across  the  Thames.  The 
struggle  waxed  desperate,  when  the  bold  Norwegian 


rtMlton's  England  147 

at  a  critical  juncture  fastened  cables  to  the  bridge, 
and  then  ordered  his  little  ships,  which  were  attached 
to  them,  to  row  hard  down  stream.  The  piles  tot- 
tered, the  bridge,  which  swarmed  with  the  Danes, 
fell,  and  those  that  were  not  drowned  were  driven 
away.  When  William  the  Conqueror  sailed  up 
the  Thames  a  half  century  later,  the  stories  of  the 
intrepid  Olaf,  who  had  become  Norway's  king  and 
had  died  in  battle,  must  have  been  fresh  in  mind. 

Not  only  this  church,  but  others  in  the  city  were 
erected  in  his  name.  The  present  structure  was 
probably  built  about  1450,  and  was  repaired  about 
the  time  that  Milton  returned  to  London  from  Italy. 

During  the  Reformation,  in  1553,  St.  Olave's  had 
"  a  pair  of  organes."  During  the  Civil  War  in 
1644,  an  ordinance  was  passed  that  all  organs  in 
churches  "  should  be  taken  away  and  utterly  de- 
faced." It  is  very  certain  that  the  music-loving 
Milton,  who  joyed  to  hear 

"...  the  organ  blow,  to  the  full-voiced  choir  below  " 

must  have  mourned  this  stern  decree.  In  conse- 
quence of  this,  most  organ  builders  for  sixteen  years 
were  obliged  to  work  as  carpenters  and  joiners. 

The  famous  diarist,  Pepys,  who  attended  St. 
Olave's,  writes  on  June  17,  1660:  "This  day  the 
organs  did  begin  to  play  at  Whitehall  Chapel,  where 


148  flMlton's  j£n0lan& 

I  heard  very  good  musique,  the  first  time  that  ever  I 
remember  to  have  heard  the  organs  and  singing 
men  in  surplices  in  my  life."  On  April  20,  1667,  he 
records :  "  To  Hackney  Church,  and  found  much 
difficulty  to  get  pews.  That  which  I  went  chiefly 
to  see  was  the  young  ladies  of  the  schools,  whereof 
there  is  great  store,  very  pretty,  and  also  the  organ, 
which  is  handsome,  and  tunes  the  psalms  and  plays 
with  the  people,  which  is  mighty  pretty,  and  makes 
me  mighty  earnest  to  have  a  pair  at  our  church  " 
—  which  meant  St.  Olave's. 

About  the  time  of  Pepys's  writing,  a  peal  of  six 
remarkably  sweet-toned  bells  was  placed  in  the 
tower.  In  the  church  are  quaint  brasses  and  monu- 
ments, the  most  interesting  of  which  is  the  tomb 
of  Pepys.  An  elegant  monument  of  alabaster,  with 
a  bust  of  Pepys,  taken  from  his  portrait  in  the 
National  Gallery,  was  unveiled  in  1884.  It  bears 
the  dates:  "  b.  1632,  d.  1703."  The  monument 
is  near  the  door  where  Pepys  used  to  enter  the 
church  from  Seething  Lane. 

Pepys,  like  Milton,  was  educated  at  St.  Paul's 
School.  His  fame  rests  chiefly  on  his  diary,  which 
was  written  in  cipher,  and  not  deciphered  and  pub- 
lished until  1825.  On  the  unveiling  of  his  monu- 
ment, James  Russell  Lowell,  in  his  address,  spoke 
of  Pepys  as  "  a  type  perhaps  of  what  is  now  called 


's  Englanfc  149 

a  Philistine.  We  have  no  word  in  English  which 
is  equivalent  to  the  French  adjective  '  bourgeois,' 
but  at  all  events,  Samuel  Pepys  was  the  most  per- 
fect type  that  ever  existed  of  the  class  of  people 
whom  this  word  describes.  He  had  all  its  merits, 
as  well  as  many  of  its  defects."  With  all  these 
defects,  perhaps  in  spite  of  them,  Lowell  maintained, 
Pepys  had  written  one  of  the  most  delightful  books 
that  it  was  man's  privilege  to  read  in  the  Eng- 
lish language,  or  in  any  other.  There  was  no  paral- 
lel to  the  character  of  Pepys  in  respect  of  naivete 
unless  it  were  found  in  that  of  Falstaff,  and  Pepys 
showed  himself,  too,  "  like  Falstaff,  on  terms  of 
unbuttoned  familiarity  with  himself.  .  .  .  Pepys's 
naivete  was  the  inoffensive  vanity  of  a  man  who 
loved  to  see  himself  in  the  glass."  It  was  ques- 
tionable, he  said,  whether  Pepys  could  have  had  any 
sense  of  humour  at  all,  and  yet  permitted  himself 
to  be  so  delightful.  The  lightest  part  of  the  diary 
was  of  value  historically,  for  it  enabled  us  to  see 
the  London  of  two  hundred  years  ago,  and,  what 
was  more,  to  see  it  with  the  eager  eyes  of  Pepys. 
It  was  not  Pepys  the  official,  the  clerk  of  the  acts 
and  secretary  of  the  Admiralty,  who  had  brought 
that  large  gathering  together  —  it  was  Pepys  the 
diarist. 

Pepys's  diary  was  begun  in  1660,  when  he  was 


i5°  flDtlton's  BnQlant) 

in  his  twenty-seventh  year.  Ten  years  later,  when 
he  feared  blindness,  he  ceased  writing  it.  He  be- 
queathed it  in  six  volumes,  written  in  cipher  as 
above  stated,  with  his  library  of  three  thousand 
books,  to  his  old  college,  Magdalen,  at  Cambridge, 
and  it  is  now  its  greatest  treasure.  Pepys  was  no 
Puritan.  His  comments  on  the  Calvinistic  teach- 
ing of  his  pastor,  Daniel  Mills,  are  characteristic. 
In  1666,  he  writes:  "  Up  and  to  church,  where  Mr. 
Mills,  a  lazy,  simple  sermon  upon  the  Devil's  having 
no  right  to  anything  in  this  world ;  "  and  again  he 
writes :  "  Mr.  Mills  made  an  unnecessary  sermon 
on  original  sin,  neither  understood  by  himself  nor 
the  people."  He  writes  that  when  he  invited  the 
reverend  gentleman  to  dinner  on  a  Sunday,  he 
"  had  a  very  good  dinner  and  very  merry." 

Among  the  notable  men  buried  near  Pepys  is 
William  Turner,  an  early  Puritan,  who  was  educated 
under  Latimer  and  died  in  1568.  He  wrote  the 
earliest  scientific  work  by  any  Englishman  on 
botany.  His  great  object  was  to  learn  the  materia 
medica  of  the  ancients  throughout  the  vegetable 
kingdom.  But  he  wrote  against  the  Roman  Anti- 
christ as  well.  The  title  of  one  book  illustrates  the 
orthography  of  his  day :  "  The  Hunting  and  Fynd- 
ing  of  the  Romish  Fox:  which  more  than  seven 
years  hath  been  among  the  Bysshoppes  of  England, 


flMlton's  England  is1 

after  that  the  Kynges  Hyghnes,  Henry  VIII.  had 
commanded  hym  to  be  driven  out  of  hys  Realme." 
Of  Sir  James  Deane,  a  merchant  adventurer  to 
India,  China,  and  the  Spice  Islands,  it  is  recorded 
that  he  gave  generous  bequests,  and  directed  £500 
to  be  expended  on  his  funeral,  a  vast  sum  for 
those  days,  yet  probably  no  more  than  was  customary 
for  wealthy  men. 

Of  Sir  John  Mennes,  who  is  buried  here,  Pepys 
tells  us  that  "  he  brought  many  fine  expressions  of 
Chaucer  which  he  doats  on  mightily,"  and  naively 
adds,  "  and  without  doubt  he  is  a  very  fine  poet." 
Droll,  lively,  garrulous  Pepys!  Who  would  have 
dreamed  that  this  boyish  writer  was  in  reality  a 
great  military  authority,  and  in  a  large  measure 
responsible  for  the  care  of  England's  navy  ? 

As  in  All  Hallows,  Barking,  and  several  old 
"  city "  churches,  the  visitor  will  notice  in  St. 
Olave's  the  remarkable,  wrought-iron  "  sword- 
stands,"  used  in  Elizabeth's  reign  and  placed  in  the 
pews  of  distinguished  persons.  The  pulpit,  with 
its  elaborate  carving,  said  to  have  been  done  by 
Grinling  Gibbons,  is  one  that  was  removed  from 
the  "  deconsecrated  "  church  of  St.  Benet. 

St.  Olave's  had  one  of  the  churchyards  in  which 
the  victims  of  the  plague  were  buried  in  great 
numbers,  and  of  which  Pepys  writes :  "  It  fright- 


is2  rtMlton's 

ened  me  indeed  to  go  through  the  church,  to  see 
so  many  graves  lie  so  high  upon  the  churchyard 
where  people  have  been  buried  of  the  plague."  The 
gruesome  skulls  and  crossbones,  carved  over  its 
gateway,  are  a  dismal  reminder  of  the  horrors  of 
that  time.  In  the  chapter  on  the  "City  of  the 
Absent,"  in  his  "  Uncommercial  Traveller,"  Dickens 
thus  graphically  describes  his  visit  to  it :  "  One  of 
my  best  beloved  churchyards,  I  call  the  churchyard 
of  Saint  Ghastly  Grim;  touching  what  men  in 
general  call  it,  I  have  no  information.  It  lies  at  the 
heart  of  the  City,  and  the  Blackwall  Railway  shrieks 
at  it  daily.  It  is  a  small,  small  churchyard,  with 
a  ferocious  strong  spiked  iron  gate,  like  a  jail.  This 
gate  is  ornamented  with  skulls  and  cross-bones, 
larger  than  the  life,  wrought  in  stone;  but  it  like- 
wise came  into  the  mind  of  Saint  Ghastly  Grim 
that  to  stick  iron  spikes  atop  of  the  stone  skulls, 
as  though  they  were  impaled,  would  be  a  pleasant 
device.  Therefore  the  skulls  grin  aloft,  horribly 
thrust  through  and  through  with  iron  spears.  Hence 
there  is  attraction  of  repulsion  for  me  in  Saint 
Ghastly  Grim,  and  having  often  contemplated  it  in 
the  daylight  and  the  dark,  I  once  felt  drawn  toward 
it  in  a  thunder-storm  at  midnight.  *  Why  not  ? '  I 
said ;  '  I  have  been  to  the  Colosseum  by  the  light 
of  the  moon ;  is  it  wcrse  to  go  to  see  Saint  Ghastly 


flDUton's  EtiQlanfc  153 

Grim  by  the  light  of  the  lightning?'  I  repaired 
to  the  Saint  in  a  hackney  cab,  and  found  the  skulls 
most  effective,  having  the  air  of  a  public  execution, 
and  seeming,  as  the  lightning  flashed,  to  wink  and 
grin  with  the  pain  of  the  spikes." 

In  the  chapter  on  "  A  Year's  Impressions,"  in 
which  Dickens  depicts  repeated  visits  to  the  deserted 
churches  of  the  London  of  the  past,  he,  with  a  deft 
touch,  describes  the  commercial  atmosphere  which 
now  impregnates  all  of  what  poetry,  history,  and 
romance  remain  to-day. 

"  From  Rood  Lane  unto  Tower  Street,  and  there- 
abouts, there  was  often  a  subtle  flavour  of  wine.  In 
the  churches  about  Mark  Lane,  for  example,  there 
was  a  dry  whiff  of  wheat,  and  I  accidentally  struck 
an  airy  sample  of  barley  out  of  an  aged  hassock 
in  one  of  them.  One  church  near  Mincing  Lane 
smelt  like  a  druggist's  drawer.  Behind  the  Monu- 
ment the  service  had  the  flavour  of  damaged 
oranges,  which,  a  little  farther  down  toward  the 
river,  tempered  into  herrings  and  gradually  toned 
into  a  cosmopolitan  blast  of  fish.  .  .  .  The  dark 
vestries  and  registers  into  which  I  have  peeped,  and 
the  little  hemmed-in  churchyards  that  have  echoed  to 
my  feet,  have  left  impressions  on  my  memory,  dis- 
tinct and  quaint.  In  all  those  dusty  registers  that 
the  worms  are  eating,  there  is  not  a  line  but  made 


iS4  /BMlton's  England 

some  heart  leap,  or  some  tears  flow,  in  their  day. 
Still  and  dry  now,  still  and  dry,  and  the  old  tree 
at  the  window,  with  no  room  for  its  branches,  has 
seen  them  all  out.  These  churches  remain  like  the 
tombs  of  the  old  citizens  who  lie  beneath  them  - 
monuments  of  another  age.  They  are  worth  a 
Sunday  exploration,  for  they  echo  to  the  time  when 
the  City  of  London  really  was  London;  when  the 
Prentices  and  Trained  Bands  were  of  mark  in 
the  state;  when  even  the  Lord  Mayor  himself  was 
a  reality." 

In  Milton's  day,  on  the  street  of  the  Crutched 
Friars,  named  from  the  ancient  convent  of  Crossed 
Friars,  was  the  row  of  almshouses  built  by  Sir 
John  Milborne  in  1535  in  honour  of  God  and  the 
Virgin.  In  some  way,  the  relief  of  the  Assumption 
of  the  Virgin  at  the  entrance  gate  escaped  destruc- 
tion by  the  Puritans,  and  remained  with  the  alms- 
houses  to  a  late  period.  To  the  American,  to  whom 
the  word  "almshouse"  signifies  the  English  "work- 
house," —  an  institution  of  paupers  where  all  live 
in  common,  —  little  idea  is  conveyed  of  the  com- 
fortable, and  usually  quaint  and  picturesque  re- 
treat which  "  almshouse  "  signifies  to  the  English 
mind.  In  many  London  suburbs  one  may  see  little 
rows  of  cottages  within  walled  gardens,  where,  in 
quiet  and  comfort  and  serenity,  aged  couples  spend 


A&Uton's  En0lan&  155 

their  last  days,  in  some  ways  the  happiest  of  their 
lives,  though  it  be  in  an  almshouse. 

At  53  Fenchurch  Street,  in  Milton's  time,  stood 
the  Queen's  Head  Tavern,  where  the  Princess  Eliza- 
beth dined  on  pork  and  peas  after  her  release  from 
the  Tower  in  1554.  The  modern  building  erected 
on  the  site  bears  a  commemorative  statue  of  her. 

Mincing  Lane,  in  the  vicinity,  was  named  from 
houses  which  belonged  to  the  Minchuns  or  nuns  of 
Saint  Helen's.  Near  its  entrance  is  the  Hall  of  the 
Clothworkers'  Company,  whose  badge  is  a  ram; 
within  are  gilt  statues  of  James  I.  and  Charles  I., 
which  were  saved  from  the  Great  Fire.  Its  garden 
was  once  the  churchyard  of  All  Hallows,  Staining, 
whose  fine  old  tower,  which  escaped  the  Fire,  still 
stands  as  when  Milton  strolled  past  and  gazed  on 
it.  The  church,  which  was  demolished  recently,  was 
reputed  to  have  been  the  earliest  stone  church  in 
the  city.  "  Stane  "  is  the  Saxon  word  for  stone, 
and  the  word  "  Staining  "  indicates  the  fact  men- 
tioned above. 

Passing  north  to  Aldgate,  Milton  must  have  seen 
the  great  gate,  which  was  not  destroyed  until  1760. 
It  was  the  chief  outlet  to  the  eastern  counties  from 
the  time  of  the  Romans  until  its  destruction. 

In  the  dwelling  over  the  gate,  according  to  Loftie, 
the  poet  Geoffrey  Chaucer  lived  in  1374.  This 


is6  flMlton's 

gate,  however,  was  pulled  down  just  before  Milton's 
birth,  and  rebuilt  the  year  after  he  was  born,  in 
1609.  When  he  saw  it,  a  gilded  statue  of  James  I. 
adorned  its  eastern  side,  and  on  the  west  were 
statues  of  Peace,  Fortune,  and  Charity. 

Aldgate  to-day  is  the  entrance  into  that  sordid, 
dismal  region,  known  as  Whitechapel,  where  within 
easy  walking  distance  from  the  site  of  the  ancient 
gate  is  its  chief  attraction  to  all  tourists.  On  Com- 
mercial Street,  standing  in  a  group,  are  the  little 
church  of  St.  Jude,  and  close  beside  it  that  Social 
Settlement,  reared  in  memory  of  the  gentle  Oxford 
scholar  and  philanthropist,  Arnold  Toynbee.  This 
is  one  of  the  few  beautiful  oases  in  a  desert  of 
squalor  and  commonplaceness,  which  the  name 
Whitechapel  now  signifies  to  most  readers. 

But  for  Milton's  haunts,  we  need  not  wander 
farther  east  than  Aldgate;  for  though  Whitechapel 
Street  was  thickly  lined  with  houses  for  some  dis- 
tance even  in  his  day,  little  of  interest  remains. 
Turning  back  through  Leadenhall  Street,  one  sees  a 
little  gray  stone  church,  with  a  low  tower  and  round- 
arched  windows,  known  as  St.  Catherine  Cree's. 
This  was  rebuilt  in  Milton's  youth  in  1629,  and  con- 
secrated two  years  later  by  the  ill-fated  Archbishop 
Laud.  The  ceremonies  which  he  used  on  this  occa- 
sion savoured  so  much  of  Popery,  however,  that 


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flMlton's  England  157 

they  were  later  brought  against  him,  and  helped  to 
accomplish  his  downfall.  In  an  older  church,  upon 
this  site,  the  famous  Hans  Holbein,  to  whom  we  are 
indebted  for  his  portraits  of  Henry  VIIL,  Sir 
Thomas  More,  and  other  famous  Englishmen,  was 
buried  in  1554,  after  his  death  by  the  plague. 
Within  the  church  may  be  seen  the  effigy  in  armour 
of  a  man  who  played  an  important  part  in  England 
when  Milton's  father  was  a  boy.  To-day,  only  the 
historian  recalls  the  name  of  Sir  Nicholas  Throck- 
morton,  whose  daughter  married  Walter  Raleigh, 
who  was  chamberlain  of  the  exchequer,  ambassa- 
dor, and  chief  butler  of  England.  The  stories  of 
his  fruitless  embassy  to  Mary  Queen  of  Scots  to 
prevent  her  marriage  with  Darnley,  and  the  rec- 
ords of  his  trial,  imprisonment,  and  death  of  a 
broken  heart  must  have  been  as  familiar  to  the  youth 
of  Milton's  time  as  the  life  of  Disraeli  or  Joseph 
Chamberlain  is  to  Cambridge  youth  to-day. 

Above  the  gateway,  in  the  churchyard,  is  a  ghastly 
memorial  to  the  builder  of  it  in  the  form  of  a 
shrouded  skeleton  on  a  mattress.  In  Shakespeare's 
time,  within  this  churchyard,  which  is  now  much 
smaller  than  it  was  then,  and  is  concealed  by  modern 
buildings,  scaffolds  were  erected  on  all  sides,  and 
religious  plays  were  performed  on  Sundays. 

Every  year,  on  October  i6th,  the  "  lion  sermon  " 


is*  flMlton's 

is  preached  within  the  church  in  memory  of  an 
ancient  worthy,  who  in  1648  gave  it  the  sum  of 
£200,  in  remembrance  of  his  delivery  from  a  lion's 
paws  in  Arabia.  As  at  St.  Olave's,  the  noon  hour, 
when  daily  service  is  performed  for  the  benefit  of 
the  one  or  two  worshippers  who  may  stray  in,  is 
the  time  to  visit  this  historic  church. 

The  first  edition  of  "  Paradise  Lost  "  bears  the 
imprint :  "  Printed,  and  are  to  be  sold  by  Peter 
Parker,  under  Creed  Church  near  Aldgate,  1667." 
"  Creed  Church  "  was  this  same  Catherine  Cree's. 

A  little  north  of  Leadenhall,  at  the  entrance  to 
the  ancient  street  called  St.  Mary  Axe,  stands  the 
church  of  St.  Andrew  Undershaft,  another  of  the 
churches  which  remain,  of  those  that  Milton  saw 
within  the  city  walls.  Its  name  recalls  the  ancient 
English  custom  of  the  May-day  dance.  A  lofty 
May-pole,  higher  than  the  tower  of  the  church,  once 
stood  beside  it,  and  was  pulled  down  on  "  Evil 
May  Day,"  in  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.,  about  the 
time  the  church  was  built,  1520-32.  It  is  a  gray 
stone  edifice,  well  preserved,  and  well  worth  a  visit 
if  for  no  other  end  than  to  see  the  tomb  of  the 
learned  and  devoted  chronicler,  Stow  —  a  name  dear 
to  every  student  of  ancient  London  and  of  English 
history.  Of  his  "  Survey,"  Loftie  says :  "  It  was  a 
wonder  even  in  the  age  which  produced  Shake- 
speare." 


/IMlton's  England  159 

Stow  was  bred  a  tailor,  but  in  middle  life  retired 
on  a  modest  competence,  and  for  forty  years  almost 
immediately  preceding  Milton's  birth  had  with 
unparalleled  industry  studied  the  history  of  his  city 
and  native  land.  His  collection  for  the  Chronicles 
of  England,  now  in  the  British  Museum,  fills  sixty 
quarto  volumes.  Every  street  of  London  and  promi- 
nent building,  every  church,  and  almost  every  monu- 
ment and  inscription,  are  faithfully  recorded  in  his 
volumes  on  London  and  Westminster.  To  him 
and  to  his  editor,  Strype,  who  has  continued  his 
work  until  a  later  period,  modern  London,  and  all 
who  love  her  and  her  long  history,  owe  an  incalcula- 
ble debt  of  gratitude. 

But  so  little  was  his  invaluable  service  recognised 
in  his  day  that  his  great  collection  of  books  aroused 
suspicion  in  some  quarters,  and  his  outspoken  words 
on  public  questions  stirred  up  the  jealous  and 
malevolent,  as  his  biographer  shows.  He  was 
reduced  to  poverty  in  his  old  age,  for  he  had  spent 
his  substance  in  his  great  enterprise.  Like  a  genuine 
historian,  he  sought  original  sources,  and  "  made 
use  of  his  own  legs  (for  he  could  never  ride),  trav- 
elling on  foot  to  many  cathedral  churches  and  other 
places  where  ancient  records  and  charters  were ;  and 
with  his  own  eyes  to  read  them."  He  studied  the 
records  in  the  Tower,  and  was  expert  in  decipher- 


160  flDilton's 

ing  old  wills  and  registers  and  muniments  belonging 
to  monasteries.  He  seems  to  have  been  somewhat 
conservative;  perhaps,  as  his  biographer  suggests, 
"  being  a  lover  of  antiquity  and  of  the  old  Religious 
Buildings  and  monuments,  he  was  the  more  preju- 
diced against  the  Reformed  Religion,  because  of  the 
havoc  and  destruction  those  that  pretended  to  it 
made  of  them  in  those  days."  One  instance  of 
Protestant  fanaticism  that  tended  to  make  him  more 
opposed  to  zeal  without  knowledge  was  that  a 
curate  of  St.  Paul's,  which  was  his  parish,  inveighed 
"  fervently  against  a  long  Maypole  called  a  Shaft 
in  the  next  Parish  to  his,  named  St.  Andrew  Under- 
shaft,  and  calling  it  an  Idol;  which  so  stirred  up 
the  devotion  of  many  hearers  that  many  of  them 
in  the  afternoon  went,  and  with  violence  pulled  it 
down  from  the  place  where  it  hung  upon  hooks ;  and 
then  sawed  it  into  divers  pieces,  each  householder 
taking  his  piece  as  much  as  hung  over  his  door 
or  stall,  and  afterward  burnt  it." 

Sir  Walter  Besant,  in  a  delightful  chapter  in  his 
"  London,"  describes  an  imaginary  visit  to  the 
learned  man,  and  a  stroll  with  him  through  the 
town  five  years  before  Milton  opened  his  eyes  in 
Bread  Street :  "  I  found  the  venerable  antiquary 
in  his  lodging.  He  lived  —  it  was  the  year  before 
he  died  —  with  his  old  wife  in  a  house  over  against 


MONUMENT   TO   JOHN    STOW 
St.  Andrew  Undershaft. 


/IMlton's  Engla^  161 


the  Church  of  St.  Andrew  Undershaft.  The  house 
itself  was  modest,  containing  two  rooms  on  the 
ground  floor,  and  one  large  room,  or  solar,  as  it 
would  have  been  called  in  olden  time,  above.  There 
was  a  garden  at  the  back,  and  behind  the  garden 
stood  the  ruins  of  St.  Helen's  Nunnery,  with  the 
grounds  and  gardens  of  that  once  famous  house, 
which  had  passed  into  the  possession  of  the  Leather- 
sellers'  Company.  ...  I  passed  within,  and  mount- 
ing a  steep,  narrow  stair,  found  myself  in  the  library 
and  in  the  presence  of  John  Stow  himself.  The 
place  was  a  long  room,  lofty  in  the  middle,  but  with 
sloping  sides.  It  was  lit  by  two  dormer  windows; 
neither  carpet  nor  arras  nor  hangings  of  any  kind 
adorned  the  room,  which  was  filled  so  that  it  was 
difficult  to  turn  about  in  it,  with  books,  papers, 
parchments,  and  rolls.  They  lay  in  piles  on  the 
floor,  they  stood  in  lines  and  columns  against  the 
walls;  they  were  heaped  upon  the  table.  I  ob- 
served too  that  they  were  not  such  books  as  may  be 
seen  in  a  great  man's  library,  bound  after  the 
Italian  fashion,  with  costly  leather,  gilt  letters, 
golden  clasps,  and  silken  strings.  Not  so;  these 
books  were  all  folios  for  the  most  part  ;  their  backs 
were  broken  ;  the  leaves,  where  any  lay  open,  were 
discoloured,  many  of  them  were  in  the  Gothic  black 
letter.  On  the  table  were  paper,  pens,  and  ink,  and 


162  flfcilton's 

in  the  straight-backed  armchair  sat  the  old  man 
himself,  pen  in  hand,  laboriously  bending  over  a 
huge  tome.  He  wore  a  black  silk  cap;  his  long 
white  hair  fell  down  upon  his  shoulders.  The  case- 
ments of  the  window  stood  open,  and  the  summer 
sunshine  poured  warm  and  bright  upon  the  scholar's 
head." 

In  an  age  of  many  elaborate  and  tasteless  monu- 
ments, Stow's  is  singularly  interesting  and  tasteful 
An  almost  life-size  figure  of  him  is  seated,  dressed 
in  a  long  robe,  before  a  table  on  which  rests  a  book 
in  which  he  is  writing.  The  whole  is  placed  within 
a  niche  in  the  tomb;  upon  the  sculptured  sides,  the 
artist  has  carved,  among  other  devices,  a  beggar's 
wallet,  indicative  of  Stow's  poverty,  for  which 
James  I.  in  his  old  age  issued  him  letters  patent  per- 
mitting him  to  solicit  aid.  These  letters  grant  "  to 
our  loving  subject,  John  Stow,  who  hath  to  his  own 
great  charge,  and  with  neglect  to  his  ordinary  means 
of  maintenance,  for  the  general  good  of  Posteritie, 
as  well  as  the  present  age,  compiled  and  published 
diverse  necessary  books  and  chronicles,  and  there- 
fore we  in  recompense  of  his  painful  labours,  and 
for  the  encouragement  of  the  like  .  .  .  authorise 
him  and  his  deputies  to  collect  among  our  loving 
subjects  their  contributions  and  kind  gratuities." 
Thus  was  the  man  who  has  chiefly  contributed  to 


/•Mlton's  England  163 


our  knowledge  of  ancient  London  allowed  in  his 
extreme  old  age  to  live  in  unappreciation  and 
neglect. 

The  visitor  cannot  but  query,  as  he  surveys  the 
handsome  monument  erected  to  him  by  his  wife, 
how  this  was  paid  for,  but  there  are  many  explana- 
tions that  suggest  themselves. 

Many  a  time  may  Milton  as  a  boy  and  man  have 
stood  before  this  tomb,  and  viewed  the  fine  timber 
roof  and  the  late  Perpendicular  windows,  which 
to-day  remain  just  as  he  saw  them.  If  the  modern 
visitor  would  study  the  fashions  of  his  day,  he  can 
do  no  better  than  inspect  such  monuments  as  the 
costly  Hammersley  erected  here.  The  date  thereon 
is  1636,  when  Milton  was  a  young  man  of  twenty- 
eight.  The  absence  in  the  life-size  kneeling  figure 
of  the  huge  stiff  crinoline  on  the  tombs  of  a  little 
earlier  date  shows  that  the  fashions  changed  as 
sharply  as  in  the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury. The  date  of  the  handsome  organ  is  1695. 


CHAPTER    X. 

CROSBY  HALL. ST.   HELENAS. —  ST.   ETHELBURGA^S. 

—  ST.    GILES'S,    CRIPPLEGATE 

^ASSING  by  the  tiny  churchyard  of  St. 
Andrew  Undershaft,  by  several  narrow 
and  obscure  passages  amid  crowded  busi- 
ness blocks,  one  comes  upon  the  famous  Crosby 
Hall  on  Bishopsgate  Street.  This  presents  to-day 
one  of  the  most  picturesque  examples  of  the  beam 
and  plaster  houses  of  the  fifteenth  century  to  be 
found  in  England.  It  was,  says  Stow,  "  the  highest 
at  that  time  in  London,"  that  is,  about  1475.  Doubt- 
less his  reference  is  to  a  high  turret  which  once  sur- 
mounted it,  but  of  which  no  traces  now  remain. 
This  was  before  the  more  pretentious  Tudor  build- 
ings of  the  next  century,  of  whose  high  towers 
Stow's  biographer  says :  "  He  could  not  endure  the 
high  turrets  and  buildings  run  up  to  a  great  height, 
which  some  citizens  in  his  time  laid  out  their  money 
upon  to  overtop  and  overlook  their  neighbours.  Such 
sort  of  advanced  works,  both  towers  and  chimneys, 
they  built  both  in  their  summerhouses  in  Moorfields 

164 


flMlton's  £nglant>  165 

and  in  other  places  in  the  suburbs,  and  in  their  dwell- 
ing houses  in  the  City  itself.  They  were  like  mid- 
summer Pageants,  '  not  so  much  for  use  and  profit 
as  for  show  and  pleasure,'  '  bewraying,'  said  he,  '  the 
vanities  of  men's  minds.  And  that  it  was  unlike  to 
the  disposition  of  the  ancient  citizens,  who  delighted 
in  the  building  of  hospitals  and  almshouses  for  the 
poor;  and  therein  both  employed  their  wits,  and 
spent  their  wealth  in  the  preferment  of  the  common 
commodity  of  this  our  city/  ' 

Crosby  House  was,  as  Sir  Thomas  More  relates, 
where  Richard,  Duke  of  Gloucester,  "  lodged  him- 
self, and  little  by  little  all  folks  drew  unto  him,  so 
that  the  Protector's  court  was  crowded  and  King 
Edward's  left  desolate."  Here  he  probably  planned 
his  treasonable  and  malicious  scheme  for  the  death 
of  the  little  princes.  In  his  play  of  "  Richard  III.," 
Shakespeare  mentions  Crosby  Hall  more  than  once; 
doubtless  he  knew  it  well,  for  ten  years  before 
the  birth  of  Milton  it  seems  evident  that  he  resided 
in  a  house  hard  by.  It  is  quite  certain  that  it  is  to 
his  immortalising  Crosby  Hall  that  its  preservation 
to  this  day  is  due,  when  almost  everything  else  that 
was  contemporaneous  in  secular  architecture  has 
disappeared  in  its  vicinity. 

The  building  has  been  much  restored,  and  its 
banquet-hall  is  now  utilised  for  a  first-class  restau- 


166  rtMlton's  Englanfc 

rant,  where  he  who  will  may  dine  where  dukes  and 
princes  dined  four  centuries  ago.  Sir  Thomas  More 
lived  here  for  several  years,  and  here  doubtless 
wrote  his  life  of  the  base  king,  to  the  echo  of  whose 
voice  these  walls  had  once  resounded.  Sir  Thomas 
sold  the  place  to  that  dear  friend  to  whom  he 
wrote  with  a  coal  a  sad  letter  of  farewell  from  his 
Tower  cell  before  his  execution.  Later,  his  daugh- 
ter, who  loved  the  place  where  her  dear  father  had 
passed  so  many  days,  hired  it,  and  came  here  to  live. 
Some  years  later,  in  1594,  the  rich  mayor  of 
London,  Sir  John  Spencer,  bought  the  place,  and 
entertained  an  ambassador  from  Henry  IV.  to  King 
James  I.  An  interesting  incident  of  this  visit  is 
related  in  the  memoirs  of  this  ambassador.  It  ap- 
pears that  much  scandal  had  been  wrought  by  the 
mad  pranks  and  rioting  of  the  attendants  of  former 
envoys.  What,  then,  was  the  horror  of  the  French 
duke,  when  he  discovered  that  one  of  the  young 
nobles  in  his  train,  on  going  out  of  Crosby  Hall  in 
quest  of  sport,  had  got  into  a  fight  and  murdered 
an  English  merchant  close  by  in  Great  St.  Helen's. 
The  duke,  determined  on  making  an  example,  bade 
all  his  servants  and  attendants  range  themselves  in 
a  row  against  the  wall,  and  taking  a  lighted  torch, 
he  looked  sharply  in  the  face  of  each  in  turn  until 
he  found  the  terrified  face  of  the  guilty  man.  Deter- 


/IMlton's  England  167 

mined  to  wreak  speedy  vengeance,  he  ordered,  after 
the  arbitrary  method  of  the  times,  his  instant  decapi- 
tation. But  the  lord  mayor  pleaded  for  mercy,  and 
the  youth's  life  was  spared;  whereupon,  the  duke 
records,  "  the  English  began  to  love,  and  the  French 
to  fear  him  more." 

This  same  Lord  Spencer,  Mayor  of  London,  had 
one  fair  daughter,  a  gay  deceiver  of  her  honoured 
sire,  and  as  much  a  lover  of  fine  clothes  and  service 
as  any  modern  dame  who  orders  gowns  from 
Worth's,  or  buys  her  jewels  on  Bond  Street.  She 
loved,  or  at  all  events  made  up  her  mind  to  marry 
the  Earl  of  Northampton,  a  man  who  was  persona 
non  grata  to  her  father,  who  had  no  mind  to  wed 
his  daughter,  the  greatest  heiress  in  England,  to  this 
gentleman.  But  the  young  folks  were  not  daunted. 
One  day  when  the  mayor  gave  a  sixpence  to  the 
baker's  boy,  who  had  come  with  a  covered  barrow 
to  bring  bread,  he  learned  later  that  the  barrow  con- 
tained not  bread,  but  his  own  naughty  Elizabeth, 
who  was  trundled  off  by  her  lover  in  disguise. 

When  their  baby  came,  some  time  later,  grand- 
papa was  wheedled  into  a  reconciliation,  and  the  gay 
young  bride  again  lived  in  Crosby  Place,  the  past 
forgiven.  As  an  illustration  of  what  wealthy  ladies 
in  Milton's  boyhood  demanded  for  their  pleasure, 
a  quotation  from  her  letter  written  to  her  husband 


168  flDUton's 

shortly  after  marriage,  may  prove  entertaining :  "  I 
pray  and  beseech  you  to  grant  me,  your  most  kind 
and  loving  wife,  the  sum  of  £2,600  quarterly  to  be 
paid.  Also  I  would,  besides  that  allowance,  have 
£600  quarterly  to  be  paid,  for  the  performance  of 
charitable  works;  and  those  things  I  would  not, 
neither  will  be,  accountable  for.  Also  I  will  have 
three  horses  for  my  own  saddle,  that  none  should 
dare  to  lend  or  borrow ;  none  lend  but  I,  none  bor- 
row but  you.  Also  I  would  have  two  gentlewomen 
.  .  .  when  I  ride  a  hunting  or  a  hawking,  or  travel 
from  one  house  to  another,  I  will  have  them  attend- 
ing; so  for  either  of  these  said  women,  I  must  and 
will  have  for  either  of  them  a  horse.  Also  I  will 
have  six  or  eight  gentlemen.  And  I  will  have  my 
two  coaches,  one  lined  with  velvet  to  myself,  with 
four  very  fine  horses;  and  a  coach  for  my  women, 
lined  with  cloth  and  laced  with  gold,  otherwise  with 
scarlet  and  laced  with  silver,  with  four  good  horses. 
Also  I  will  have  two  coachmen.  Also,  at  any  time 
when  I  travel,  I  will  be  allowed  not  only  coaches  and 
spare  horses  for  me  and  my  women,  but  I  will  be 
having  such  carriages  as  shall  be  fitting  for  all; 
orderly,  not  pestering  my  things  with  my  women's 
nor  theirs  with  their  chambermaids,  nor  theirs  with 
their  washmaids.  .  .  .  And  I  must  have  two  foot- 
men; and  my  desire  is  that  you  defray  all  the 


flDtlton's  Englanfc  169 

charges  for  me.  And  for  myself,  besides  my 
yearly  allowance,  I  would  have  twenty  gowns 
of  apparel.  Also  I  would  have  to  put  me  in  my 
purse  £2,000  and  £200,  and  so  you  to  pay  my  debts. 
Also  I  would  have  £6,000  pounds  to  buy  me  jewels, 
and  £4,000  to  buy  me  a  pearl  chain.  Now,  seeing  I 
have  been  and  am  so  reasonable  unto  you,  I  pray  you 
do  find  my  children  apparel  and  their  schooling,  and 
all  my  servants,  men  and  women,  their  wages.  .  .  . 
So  for  my  drawing-chambers  in  all  houses,  I  will 
have  them  delicately  furnished,  both  with  hangings, 
couch,  canopy,  glass,  carpet,  chairs,  cushions,  and 
all  things  thereunto  belonging.  ...  I  pray  you 
when  you  be  an  earl  to  allow  me  £2,000  more  than 
I  now  desire,  and  double  attendance." 

The  Countess  of  Pembroke,  sister  of  Sir  Philip 
Sidney  and  friend  of  Ben  Jonson,  once  lived  as  mis- 
tress in  the  halls  of  Crosby  Place.  The  latter's  epi- 
taph upon  her  is  well  known : 

"  Underneath  this  sable  hearse 
Lies  the  subject  of  all  verse  : 
Sidney's  sister,  Pembroke's  mother. 
Death,  ere  thou  canst  find  another 
Good  and  fair  and  wise  as  she, 
Time  shall  throw  a  dart  at  thee." 

Crosby  Hall  originally  occupied  far  more  ground 
than  is  indicated  by  that  part  of  it  which  stands 


170  flMlton's  England 

to-day.  A  wine  cellar  with  finely  groined  roof  prob- 
ably belonged  to  a  crypt  of  its  chapel,  which  has 
vanished.  In  its  great  hall,  fifty-four  feet  long  and 
forty  feet  high,  one  sees  to-day,  in  beautiful  modern 
workmanship,  the  arms  of  St.  Helen's  Priory,  the 
earliest  proprietor  of  the  place ;  of  Sir  John  Crosby, 
its  builder ;  of  the  "  crook-backed  tyrant,"  Richard, 
and  of  the  wise,  the  gentle,  the  learned  author  of 
the  "  Utopia."  Its  "  louvre,"  or  opening  in  the  roof, 
is  found  in  ancient  halls  in  lieu  of  a  chimney.  This 
hall,  however,  has  a  regular  fireplace,  but  perhaps  of 
later  construction.  The  louvre  now  is  closed  by  the 
same  piece  of  woodwork  that  formerly  was  raised 
above  it.  The  beautiful  carved  roof  itself  is  now  as 
it  was  over  four  centuries  ago,  the  chief  glory  of  the 
place.  Beneath  it  the  most  accomplished  musicians 
of  the  past  discoursed  sweet  music,  and  the  noble, 
the  learned,  and  the  fashionable  gathered  at  the 
hospitable  board.  Not  unlikely,  the  author  of 
"  Comus  "  and  "  Lycidas,"  in  the  days  before  its 
owner  fought  under  Charles  I.,  may  have  been 
among  their  company. 

In  Milton's  blind  old  age,  Crosby  Hall  became  a 
Presbyterian  meeting-house,  and  for  a  century  after- 
ward devout  worshippers  sang  psalms  beneath  its 
carved  oak  roof,  which  had  echoed  for  two  hundred 
years  to  sounds  of  mirth  and  feasting. 


<     73 

ac  "o 

S3    Z. 
C/5      O 

SI 

O     v 


flDUton's  jEnalanfc  171 


A  little  to  the  left  of  Crosby  Hall,  through  a  low 
gateway,  the  sightseer  passes  from  the  noisy  thor- 
oughfare into  a  quiet  court.  Its  pavement  covers 
the  ancient  garden  of  Crosby  Place.  But  it  is 
not  all  paved.  A  small  green  churchyard  still  occu- 
pies a  part  of  the  site  of  the  ancient  priory  of  St. 
Helen's,  and  surrounds  the  low  Gothic  church  to 
which  one  descends  a  few  steps  from  the  modern 
pavement. 

Helena,  the  mother  of  Constantine,  according  to 
tradition,  discovered  the  tomb  of  Christ  and  there- 
upon was  canonised.  From  remote  antiquity  a 
church  in  her  honour  has  stood  here.  Three  cen- 
turies before  Milton's  day,  the  Benedictine  nuns 
built  a  priory  close  by  the  ancient  church.  They  built 
their  church,  and  finally,  getting  possession  of  St. 
Helen's,  incorporated  it  with  their  own.  To-day  the 
ends  of  the  two  naves,  with  a  little  cupola  at  the 
intersection,  present  an  irregular  and  picturesque 
aspect;  the  interior,  likewise,  by  its  irregularities, 
recalls  the  curious  origin  of  the  structure.  An 
agreeable  harmony  of  differing  forms  and  propor- 
tions has  been  accomplished.  The  old,  old  church, 
dim  even  on  a  sunshiny  June  day,  is  pervaded  by  a 
strange  charm.  Business  has  crowded  to  its  very 
walls  ;  but  the  rumble  of  the  streets  is  dulled  by  the 
intervening  structures  of  modern  prosaic  type  that 


172  flDUton's 

hem  in  its  peaceful  solitude.  Unlike  the  last  three 
churches  of  which  we  have  spoken,  its  doors  are  open 
all  day  long,  and  the  traveller  has  not  to  make  painful 
search  amid  warehouses  and  down  cross  streets  for 
the  sexton's  keys.  St.  Helen's  is  large  enough  and 
beautiful  enough  to  lure  the  frequent  visitor;  and 
perhaps  it  is  a  welcome  refuge  to  many  a  perplexed 
and  overwearied  man  of  business,  who,  for  a  few 
moments,  now  and  then,  flees  from  his  office  and 
commercial  cares,  to  rest  and  lift  his  thoughts  to 
heavenly  things  within  this  sanctuary. 

St.  Helen's  is  noted  for  its  tombs,  and  has  been 
called  the  Westminster  Abbey  of  the  "  City."  Here 
lies  that  noted  and  remarkable  man,  Sir  Thomas 
Gresham.  The  visitor  to  the  upper  floor  of  the 
National  Portrait  Gallery,  in  those  rooms  where 
hang  the  portraits  of  the  Elizabethan  era,  will 
remember  the  strong  face  and  figure,  elegantly  clad, 
of  the  man  whose  bones  rest  here,  and  of  whom  we 
shall  have  more  to  say  in  connection  with  his 
college  and  the  exchange  which  rose  under  his  direc- 
tion. His  monument  is  a  large  marble  slab  full  of 
fossil  shells,  and  raised  table  high.  The  date  is 
1579.  From  the  beautiful,  great  window  of  the 
Nun's  Church,  the  coloured  rays  of  his  own  arms  fall 
on  his  tomb. 

Upon  the  wall  behind  it  are  niches ;  one  of  them 


/IMlton's  Englanfc  173 

faced  by  a  little  carved  arcade,  through  which,  it 
is  said,  the  nuns  who  were  in  disgrace  listened  to 
the  mass  from  the  crypt  below.  A  large  ugly  piece 
of  masonry  on  the  same  wall  near  the  farther  end 
once  contained  the  embalmed  body  of  Francis  Ban- 
croft, whose  face  was  visible  through  the  glass  lid 
of  his  coffin.  A  few  years  since  both  body  and  tomb 
were  placed  within  the  crypt.  According  to  his  will, 
on  the  occasion  of  an  annual  memorial  sermon  for 
which  he  had  arranged,  his  body  was  exhibited  to 
certain  humble  folk  for  whom  he  had  erected,  in 
expiation  of  his  misdeeds,  the  almshouses  now  at 
Mile  End.  Browning  has  with  characteristic  power 
depicted  the  Roman  Jew  scourged  to  the  Christian 
church,  and  forced  to  hear  a  sermon  once  a  year  for 
his  conversion.  Perhaps  some  later  poet  may  find 
as  gruesome  a  theme  for  his  sarcastic  pen  in  the 
scene  which  imagination  conjures  up  when  these 
feeble  and  aged  recipients  of  the  gift  of  this  erratic 
snob  were  yearly  brought  to  listen  to  the  tale  of  his 
benefactions,  and  to  gaze  upon  his  shrivelling  corpse. 
Bancroft  as  a  magistrate  had  been  so  unpopular 
that  the  people  tried  to  upset  his  coffin  on  its  way  to 
the  tomb,  and  pealed  the  bells. 

The  oldest  monument  in  the  church  is  to  Thomas 
Langton,  chaplain,  buried  in  the  choir  in  1350.  One 
tomb  bears  the  remarkable  name  of  Sir  Julius 


174  flMlton'8 

Caesar.  The  inscription  is  in  form  of  a  legal  docu- 
ment with  a  broken  seal,  in  which  Sir  Julius  gives 
his  bond  to  Heaven  to  surrender  his  life  whenever  it 
shall  please  God  to  call  him.  If  one  would  see  Sir 
Julius  as  Milton  saw  him,  let  him  look  upon  his  por- 
trait that  hangs  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery 
with  his  great  contemporaries. 

The  obdurate  father-in-law,  the  rich  Sir  John 
Spencer  of  Crosby  Hall,  is  commemorated,  by  his 
son-in-law,  the  Earl  of  Northampton,  in  a  stately 
alabaster  tomb.  The  figures  of  Sir  John  and  his 
wife  rest  under  a  double  canopy,  and  at  their  feet 
kneels  the  runaway  daughter,  in  the  enormous  stiff 
crinoline  of  1609,  the  date  of  her  father's  death. 
Some  thousand  men  in  mourning  cloaks  are  said 
to  have  attended  his  funeral.  The  tomb  of  Sir 
John  Crosby  and  his  wife,  of  1475,  the  beautiful 
and  perfectly  preserved  tomb  of  Oteswich  and  his 
wife,  of  the  time  of  Henry  IV.,  and  the  fine  figure  of 
a  girl  reading,  are  a  few  of  the  works  of  art  that 
deserve  careful  attention.  The  beauty  of  that  which 
antedates  the  Tudor  and  Stuart  periods,  as  con- 
trasted with  the  works  of  art  of  those  periods,  is 
almost  as  marked  as  it  is  at  Westminster  Abbey. 

When  Milton  lived  he  must  have  seen  still  stand- 
ing the  refectory  and  cloisters,  and  the  old  hall 
of  the  nuns,  which  was  later  used  by  the  Company 


flDUton's  England  175 

of  Leathersellers.  The  whole  group  of  buildings, 
with  the  adjacent  gardens,  must  have  formed  a 
highly  picturesque  reminder  of  the  days  before  King 
"  Hal  "  had  ruthlessly  swept  his  besom  of  destruc- 
tion over  the  many  houses  in  the  land  which  shel- 
tered nuns  and  friars. 

During  Milton's  life  there  stood  on  Bishopsgate 
Street  the  first  charitable  institution  for  the  insane 
that  was  ever  established.  Its  name,  "  Bethlehem 
Hospital,"  was  corrupted  into  Bedlam,  and  has 
become  a  term  of  general  application  to  scenes  of 
disorder.  Just  after  Milton's  death,  it  was  removed 
to  Southwark,  where  the  gray  dome  of  the  present 
structure  rises  conspicuous  amid  the  London  smoke. 

Passing  northeast  along  the  crowded  thorough- 
fare of  Bishopsgate  Street,  but  a  short  distance  from 
St.  Helen's,  the  student  of  antiquities  may  see,  al- 
most concealed  by  parasitic  houses,  the  little  ancient 
church  of  St.  Ethelburga.  He  will  need  to  cross 
the  street  in  order  to  perceive  the  name  inscribed 
in  large  letters  upon  the  church,  beneath  the  short 
tower  and  cupola,  and  above  the  clock  and  the  shop 
that  masks  its  front.  In  Milton's  boyhood,  this 
church  was  ancient,  and  had  been  standing  for  at 
least  three  hundred  and  fifty  years,  for  it  is  men- 
tioned as  early  as  1366.  Here  Chaucer  may  have 
knelt  to  say  his  Paternosters. 


176  flDilton's  Bnglanfc 

The  visitor  should  time  his  coming  to  the  middle 
of  the  day,  when  the  door  opening  upon  the  sidewalk 
is  unlocked,  and  he  may  enter  into  the  solemn  little 
sanctuary,  and  at  the  farther  end  step  out  into 
the  tiny  garden  at  the  rear.  Here,  if  it  be  summer, 
he  may  sit  in  this  shady  retreat  and  meditate  upon 
the  history  of  the  bit  of  ancient  wall  said  by  the 
verger  to  be  a  Roman  wall,  the  fragments  of  which 
are  preserved  here.  The  church  itself  is  plain  and 
bare;  simply  a  Gothic  nave,  with  no  side  aisles.  Its 
chief  interest  to  some  may  be  its  antique  organ,  of 
uncertain  date,  but  old  enough  from  its  appearance 
to  have  been  heard  by  the  little  lad  from  Bread 
Street  whose  soul  was  full  of  music.  One  can  easily 
imagine  the  father  of  John  Milton,  who  was  himself 
so  skilled  in  the  great  art,  bringing  his  son  to  every 
church  within  his  neighbourhood  that  boasted  such 
an  instrument. 

The  church  stands  on  the  site  of  a  much  older 
one,  and  is  named  from  the  daughter  of  the  French 
princess,  Bertha,  who  brought  to  Canterbury,  to  the 
home  of  her  Saxon  husband,  Ethelbert,  the  Christian 
religion,  which  was  then  new  to  pagan  England. 
Visitors  to  the  little  church  of  St.  Martin's  at  Can- 
terbury will  recall  the  font  in  which  this  king  was 
baptised  into  the  faith  of  his  wife. 

Not  far  down  Bishopsgate  Street,  upon  the  oppo- 


flDilton'5  England  177 

site  side  from  St.  Ethelburga's,  when  Milton  lived, 
stood  a  house  with  such  a  marvellous  carved  front 
with  oriel  windows,  that  when  it  made  way  for 
a  modern  business  block,  it  was  transferred  to  the 
South  Kensington  Museum,  where  it  may  now  be 
seen  in  one  of  its  lofty  halls.  In  Milton's  youth, 
Sir  Paul  Pindar,  its  owner,  was  the  richest  merchant 
in  the  kingdom,  and  often  loaned  money  to  James  I. 
and  his  son  Charles.  As  ambassador  to  Constanti- 
nople, he  did  much  to  improve  England's  trade  in  the 
East.  On  his  return,  when  Milton  was  a  schoolboy 
of  a  dozen  years  at  St.  Paul's  School,  he  brought, 
among  his  other  treasures,  a  great  diamond,  valued 
at  £30,000,  which  he  loaned  to  the  king  to  wear  at 
his  opening  of  the  Parliaments;  it  was  afterward 
sold  to  Charles  I.  Twenty  years  later,  when  Crom- 
well and  Milton  were  fighting  for  the  rights  of  Eng- 
lishmen, and  Charles's  strength  was  failing,  this 
same  Paul  Pindar  provided  funds  for  the  escape  of 
Queen  Henrietta  Maria  and  her  children. 

He  gave  £10,000  for  the  restoration,  before  the 
fire,  of  St.  Paul's  Cathedral.  But  his  loyalty  to 
the  house  of  Stuart  was  put  to  a  hard  test,  for  the 
king  borrowed  such  enormous  sums  that  he  was 
all  but  ruined.  When  Milton  walked  down  Bishops- 
gate  Street,  past  his  quaint  dwelling-house,  he  must 
have  seen  the  mulberry-trees  planted  in  the  park 


178  flDtlton's  J£n0lan& 

to  please  James  I.  by  his  devoted  subject.  These 
ancient  mulberry-trees  disappeared  only  within  the 
memory  of  men  now  living. 

Passing  westward  along  the  northern  site  of  the 
old  city  wall,  in  search  of  the  few  landmarks  that 
escaped  the  Great  Fire  and  still  remain,  we  come  to 
that  church  of  all  others  most  dear  to  Milton  lovers. 
St.  Giles's,  Cripplegate,  is  not  easily  entered  on  Sun- 
day, except  during  hours  of  service.  But  a  courteous 
question  to  the  burly  guardian  of  the  peace  who 
patrols  the  neighbourhood  may  effect  an  unlocking 
of  the  gates  and  a  quiet  stroll  through  the  green 
garden  that  surrounds  the  church  upon  two  sides. 
The  big  policeman  is  a  good  talker,  and  relates  with 
gusto  the  ravages  of  the  great  fire  a  few  years  since, 
which  came  so  near  as  to  melt  the  lead  upon  the 
church  roof. 

The  massive  wall  which  forms  a  corner  of  the 
green  yard  is  a  bastion  of  the  city  wall  in  the  time 
of  Edward  IV.  Possibly  the  long,  narrow  bricks 
which  still  gleam  red  in  the  lower  part  may  be  a 
lingering  remnant  of  the  old  Roman  wall.  Cer- 
tainly they  are  the  type  that  the  Romans  were  wont 
to  use.  The  policeman  assures  us  that  there  are 
mysterious  "  submarine  "  passages  leading  from  this 
wall,  and  one  may  well  believe  almost  anything  as 
one  thinks  of  the  strange  sights  that  it  has  witnessed. 


-  si 
2  *j 

a   8.*° 

r*        C      >i 


«  -g-2    ^ 
E   1  3   '* 


c 

S  s 


c  -g  2 


flMlton'8  EttQlaufc  179 


High  walls  of  business  blocks  of  nondescript  style 
replace  the  gaps  made  by  the  recent  fire,  which  fortu- 
nately stopped  before  it  touched  the  narrow,  gabled 
houses  of  wood  which  cluster  close  about  the  church. 
These  give  almost  the  only  example  to-day  in 
London  of  the  type  of  building  which  housed  the 
poorer  class  of  Londoners  of  Milton's  time. 

The  church  is  on  the  site  of  an  older  one  of  1090, 
and  was  built  about  one  hundred  years  before  Mil- 
ton's birth.  It  is  late  Perpendicular,  and  has  some 
good  detail. 

As  one  enters  the  church  from  the  garden,  the 
first  monument  on  his  right  is  Milton's,  which  con- 
tains his  bust,  under  a  Gothic  canopy.  The  poet's 
bones  lie  by  his  father's,  under  the  pavement  near 
the  choir.  According  to  the  evidence  of  a  little  book 
written  about  1790,  it  seems  that  his  coffin  was 
opened  by  irresponsible  persons,  who  found  the 
lead  much  decayed  and  easily  bent  back  the  top. 
A  servant-maid  for  a  consideration  let  in  sightseers 
through  a  window,  some  of  whom,  after  satisfying 
their  curiosity  in  gazing  on  the  well-preserved  fig- 
ure, snatched  hair  and  teeth  and  even  an  arm-bone 
to  carry  away  as  relics.  A  later  authority  questions 
whether  it  is  certain  that  the  grave  thus  desecrated 
was  indeed  Milton's  or  another's,  and  leaves  a  grain 


flDilton's 

of  comfort  in  the  thought  that  perhaps  his  honoured 
remains  still  rest  untouched  by  vandals. 

Within  this  church  Ben  Jonson  was  married  in 
1623,  and  here  Oliver  Cromwell,  a  sturdy  youth  of 
twenty-one,  married  his  bride  on  August  22d  in 
1620.  Little  thought  the  parson,  as  he  and  Eliza- 
beth Bourchier  knelt  before  him,  to  be  joined  in  holy 
wedlock,  that  one  day  he  would  be  entitled  not  only 
"  Protector  of  England,"  but  "  Protector  of  Prot- 
estantism." A  marvellous  man,  this  Oliver,  whose 
deeds  left  much  to  be  forgiven  by  a  later  age,  for 
they  sometimes  had  more  of  the  spirit  of  Joshua  than 
of  the  Founder  of  the  Christian  Faith,  and  yet 
as  a  lover  of  England,  and  a  minister  to  the  court 
of  Queen  Victoria  from  England's  lusty  kin  beyond 
the  sea  has  said  : 

"  He  lived  to  make  his  simple  oaken  chair 
More  terrible,  more  grandly  beautiful, 
Than  any  throne  before  or  after  of  a  British  king. 


One  of  the  few  who  have  a  right  to  rank 
With  the  true  Makers ;  for  his  spirit  wrought 
Order  from  Chaos ;  proved  that  right  divine 
Dwelt  only  in  the  excellence  of  truth  ; 
And  far  within  old  Darkness'  hostile  lines 
Advanced  and  pitched  the  shining  tents  of  Light 
Nor  shall  the  grateful  Muse  forget  to  tell, 
That  —  not  the  least  among  his  many  claims 


/IMlton'9  EnQlanfc  181 


To  deathless  honour  —  he  was  MILTON'S  friend, 
A  man  not  second  among  those  who  lived 
To  show  us  that  the  poet's  lyre  demands 
An  arm  of  tougher  sinew  than  the  sword." 

—  "  A  Glance  Behind  tJie  Curtain"  Lowell. 

One  grave  within  the  church  may  have  been  dear 
to  Milton  besides  that  of  his  honoured  father.  As 
he  lived  only  one  generation  removed  from  the 
martyrs  of  Smithfield,  he  must  often  have  pored 
over  the  record  of  their  heroism  and  cruel  deaths, 
by  Fox,  the  famous  martyrologist.  Near  the  west 
door  lies  the  slab  above  his  grave.  The  date  is  1587. 
Here,  no  doubt,  Milton,  who,  as  has  been  said,  at 
different  times  had  dwellings  near  the  church,  must 
often  have  entered  within  its  doors  and  paused. 

Says  the  historian  Marsden :  "  Fox  placed  the 
Church  of  England  under  greater  obligations  than 
any  writer  of  his  time,  and  had  his  recompense  in 
an  old  age  of  poverty  and  shame.  .  .  .  Nor  were  his 
writings  undervalued  even  then ;  they  were  com- 
manded to  be  chained  up  in  churches  by  the  side 
of  the  homilies  and  the  English  Bible ;  .  .  .  thus  the 
'  Book  of  Martyrs  '  stood  amongst  the  high,  au- 
thentic records  of  our  Church,  whilst  its  venerable 
author  yet  lived." 

Frobisher,  the  great  navigator,  is  also  buried 
within  the  church. 


i8a  flMlton's  England 

On  the  left  wall,  as  one  faces  the  choir,  is  a  curi- 
ous doggerel  inscription  to  one  Busbie.  If  it  be 
on  a  Sunday  afternoon,  and  the  children  have 
gathered  for  the  Sunday  school,  it  may  be  interesting 
to  pause  a  bit,  as  we  have  done,  before  the  epitaph, 
and,  while  copying  it,  to  lend  a  half  ear  to  the  teach- 
ing that  goes  on  within  hearing.  Three  small  boys 
sit  on  a  bench  before  a  solemn  youth  who  holds  a 
book  and  instructs  their  infant  minds  as  follows : 
"  Who  is  God  ?  Where  is  God  ?  How  many  per- 
sons are  there  in  the  Godhead  ?  Keep  still  there  — 
don't  answer  until  it  is  your  turn.  When  God 
put  Adam  and  Eve  out  of  Eden,  what  did  he  prom- 
ise them  ?  "  "  That  they  should  be  saved,"  mumbles 
one  youngster.  "  Whom  did  he  promise  should 
save  them?  "  "  His  Son."  "  What  do  we  call  his 
Son?"  "Our  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ." 
The  next  class  and  all  the  others  scattered  through 
the  church  are  progressing  in  Christian  nurture  in 
much  the  same  way,  and  one  wonders  whether  the 
pedagogical  skill  of  the  teachers  has  advanced  one 
whit  in  all  the  hundreds  of  years  since  the  church 
was  built.  We  hear  no  "  opening  exercises,"  no 
joyous  singing,  no  tender,  earnest  talk  about  right- 
doing  and  the  temptations  that  little  boys  on  Fore 
Street  may  encounter  on  Monday  morning.  There 
is  nothing  but  a  purely  formal  catechising  of  these 


flDilton's  England  183 

eager,  impressionable  little  souls  as  to  a  theology 
that  they  cannot  understand,  and  a  history  of  the 
world  which  their  first  lesson  on  geology  will  under- 
mine. This  modern  Sunday  school  is  the  one  blot 
upon  the  memory  of  the  beautiful  old  church  so 
dear  to  every  lover  of  Milton. 

On  a  week  day  one  may  stand  on  Redcross  Street, 
and  behold,  as  did  the  travellers  in  "  The  Hand  of 
Ethelberta,"  "  the  bold  shape  of  the  tower  they 
sought,  clothed  in  every  neutral  shade,  standing 
clear  against  the  sky,  dusky  and  grim  in  its  upper 
stages,  and  hoary  gray  below,  where  every  corner 
of  stone  was  rounded  off  by  the  waves  of  wind  and 
storm.  All  people  were  busy  here;  our  visitors 
seemed  to  be  the  only  idle  persons  that  the  city 
contained ;  and  there  was  no  dissonance  —  there 
never  is  —  between  antiquity  and  such  beehive 
industry.  .  .  .  This  intramural  stir  was  a  fly-wheel, 
transparent  by  infinite  motion,  through  which  Milton 
and  his  day  could  be  seen  as  if  nothing  intervened." 


CHAPTER    XI. 

GRESHAM       COLLEGE.  —  AUSTIN       FRIARS.  —  GUILD- 

HALL. —  ST.    MARY'S,     ALDERM  ANBURY.  — 
CHRIST'S    HOSPITAL.  —  ST.    SEPULCHRE'S. 


Milton's  lifetime  and  for  nearly 
a  century  after,  there  stood  on  Gresham 
Street  and  Basinghall  Street  the  famous 
Gresham  College,  founded  in  1579,  in  honour  of 
Sir  Thomas  Gresham,  who  gave  the  Royal  Ex- 
change to  the  city  on  condition  that  the  corporation 
should  institute  lectures  on  divinity,  civil  law, 
astronomy,  music,  geometry,  rhetoric,  and  physics, 
to  be  delivered  at  his  residence.  His  dwelling-house 
was  a  spacious  edifice  of  brick  and  timber,  "  with 
open  courts  and  covered  walks  which  seemed  all 
so  well  suited  for  such  an  intention,  as  if  Sir  Thomas 
had  it  in  view,  at  the  time  he  built  his  house." 
Seven  professors  were  appointed  and  lectured  in  the 
morning  in  Latin,  in  the  afternoon  in  English  for 
two  hours  each  day.  Among  the  number  was  Sir 
Christopher  Wren,  who  not  only  was  the  greatest 
architect,  but,  as  is  elsewhere  said,  was  one  of  the 

184 


a  <M 

y  •* 

j  | 

5  Is 


<  * 

I  « 

C/3  » 

a  I 


flDtlton's  i6nGlan&  185 

famous  astronomers  of  his  day.  It  was  out  of 
his  lectures  on  astronomy,  which  were  attended  by 
learned  men,  that  the  Royal  Society  originated.  On 
Cromwell's  death,  all  college  matters  were  put  in 
abeyance,  and  the  college  was  temporarily  turned 
into  barracks,  and  so  polluted  that  Bishop  Sprat 
wrote  to  Wren  that  he  "  found  the  place  in  such  a 
nasty  condition,  so  defiled,  and  the  smells  so 
infernal,  that  if  you  should  now  come  to  make  use 
of  your  tube  [telescope]  it  would  be  like  Dives 
looking  out  of  hell  into  heaven." 

After  the  Fire,  Gresham  College  was  temporarily 
used  for  an  Exchange,  where  merchants  met. 
"  Gresham  College  became  an  epitome  of  this  great 
city,  and  the  centre  of  all  affairs,  both  public  and 
private,  which  were  then  transacted  in  it." 

Except  "  London  stone "  and  bits  of  the  Old 
Wall,  little  more  remains  to  consider  among  the 
important  landmarks  of  the  city  that  was  nightly 
locked  within  the  city  gates,  and  which  still  endures 
after  the  Great  Fire.  Of  this  little  part,  Austin 
Friars  Church,  on  the  site  of  the  Augustinian 
Convent,  is  the  most  notable.  Of  the  extensive  and 
magnificent  establishment  that  was  founded  here 
in  1253,  nothing  to-day  remains  but  the  nave  of  the 
great  church  of  former  days,  which  is  now  reached 
through  narrow  passages  from  Old  Broad  Street 


186  flDUton's  Bnglanfc 

north  of  the  Bank.  Originally  the  church  was  cruci- 
form, with  choir,  transepts,  and  a  "  most  fine,  spired 
steeple,  both  small  and  straight."  Henry  VIII.  at 
the  Dissolution  bestowed  the  house  and  grounds 
upon  the  first  Marquis  of  Winchester,  but  the  church 
was  given  by  the  young  King  Edward  VI.  "  to  the 
Dutch  nation  in  London,  to  be  their  preaching 
place."  From  that  day  to  this  the  Dutch  have 
worshipped  here,  and  in  the  days  of  persecution  it 
was  the  religious  home  of  other  Continental  refugees. 
In  the  generation  before  Milton,  thousands  of  the 
skilled  artisans  of  the  Netherlands  and  France  had 
fled  to  England,  impoverishing  the  lands  of  the 
short-sighted  tyrants  who  drove  them  forth,  to  add 
to  English  industry  and  commerce.  The  most  emi- 
nent pastor  of  these  exiles  was  a  Polish  nobleman, 
John  a  Lasco,  who  shepherded,  not  only  this  flock, 
but  all  the  other  foreigners  in  England,  and  super- 
intended their  schools  as  well.  He  was  a  friend  of 
Melanchthon  and  Erasmus,  was  with  the  latter  when 
he  died,  and  became  possessed  of  his  library. 

It  was  to  these  refugees  in  London,  Norwich,  and 
other  towns  that  harboured  them,  that  England 
owed  the  introduction  of  many  new,  choice  flowers, 
among  them,  the  gillyflower,  carnation,  Provence 
rose,  and  others.  The  handiwork  of  these  indus- 
trious folk  produced  many  new  stuffs  unknown  to 


flDilton's  England  187 

English  ladies,  among  others  the  fine  light  fabric 
known  as  bombazine.  One  of  the  Dutch  ladies,  who 
taught  the  English  to  starch  and  launder  cambric 
ruffs,  was  so  much  sought  after  and  charged  such 
high  fees,  that  she  soon  earned  herself  a  competence. 
Evidently  these  strangers  paid  their  way. 

The  church  assigned  to  them  in  London  once 
possessed  a  marvellous  array  of  tombs  of  noted  men. 
The  register  is  crowded  with  the  names  of  earls  and 
barons,  all  of  whose  monuments  were  sold  by  the 
impecunious  and  callous  marquis  for  £100.  Just 
before  Milton's  birth  the  fourth  Marquis  of  Win- 
chester was  compelled  to  part  with  all  his  posses- 
sions in  Austin  Friars.  At  about  this  time  the 
tower,  declared  to  be  "  one  of  the  beautiiullest  and 
rarest  spectacles  "  in  the  city,  was  pulled  down,  and 
the  choir  and  transepts  were  demolished.  The  size 
of  the  original  building  may  be  imagined  when  we 
remember  that  the  length  of  the  nave  alone  is  one 
hundred  and  fifty  feet  to-day.  The  chronicler 
records  that  in  the  beginning  of  the  Dutch  services, 
the  church  was  filled  to  overflowing.  Whether  there 
are  fewer  Dutch  in  London  four  centuries  later,  or 
fewer  who  are  glad  to  worship  in  their  own  tongue, 
cannot  be  said.  But  to-day,  the  visitor,  who  on  a 
Sunday  morning  walks  through  the  silent  and 
deserted  streets  north  of  the  Bank  of  England,  and 


i88  flDilton's 

penetrates  to  the  seclusion  of  Austin  Friars  Church, 
will  find  but  a  scant  congregation  of  perhaps  two 
hundred,  who  gather  cosily  within  the  curtains  in 
the  centre  of  the  nave,  which  shut  out  the  great  bare 
aisles.  If  he  thinks  of  the  old  days  when  Roger 
Williams  taught  Dutch  to  his  learned  pupil,  John 
Milton,  he  may  let  his  fancy  picture  to  him  these 
men,  who  ranked  among  the  nation-builders  of  their 
day,  stepping  some  Sunday  morning  under  its  Gothic 
arches  from  out  the  greensward  that  then  surrounded 
them,  and  listening  to  the  gospel  in  the  tongue  of 
those  brave  exiles  who,  like  them,  had  fought  for 
freedom  of  conscience. 

If  the  visitor  waits  after  service,  he  may  see  in 
the  pastor's  room  the  portrait  of  John  a  Lasco,  to 
whom  all  the  congregation  point  back  with  pride,  as 
the  first  and  greatest  preacher  in  their  history ;  and 
the  courteous  pastor  may  point  out  many  things  of 
interest  that  would  escape  the  casual  observer. 
Standing  at  the  front  of  the  church,  beside  the  little 
tower  at  the  left,  whose  beautiful  spire  no  longer 
rises  aloft,  one  finds  himself  in  the  heart  of  the 
modern  business  world,  relentless,  pushing,  loving 
neither  beauty  nor  the  sacredness  of  age.  One  sign 
—  Barnato  Brothers  —  may  attract  his  attention  in 
a  window  close  to  the  gray  church  walls.  Here  the 
ambitious  and  ill-starred  king  of  African  mines, 


flDilton's  Enala^  189 


Barney  Barnato,  brought  his  power  to  bear  upon 
the  men  on  'Change  a  decade  since.  A  decade  hence 
his  name,  like  John  a  Lasco's,  will  be  remembered 
by  few.  These  names  and  the  associations  they  sug- 
gest are  no  unfitting  theme  for  meditation  on  a 
Sunday  morning  stroll  amid  the  stony  streets  of 
London  past  and  present. 

Further  west,  amid  the  district  swept  by  the 
Great  Fire,  stands  Guildhall,  not  as  it  stood  either 
before  or  after  the  fire,  but  still  worthy  of  mention 
in  the  category  of  buildings  that  withstood  the 
flames.  Only  the  roof  perished  in  the  fire,  and  its 
walls  stood  intact;  but  so  great  have  been  the 
changes  since  their  restoration  that  very  little  which 
belonged  to  Milton's  London  remains  above  the 
crypt. 

A  clergyman,  writing  the  year  after  the  Great 
Fire,  thus  describes  it,  as  he  saw  it  during  that  terri- 
ble conflagration  :  "  And  amongst  other  things  that 
night,  the  sight  of  Guildhall  was  a  fearful  spectacle, 
which  stood  the  whole  of  it  together,  after  the  fire 
had  taken  it,  without  flames  (I  suppose  because  the 
timber  was  such  solid  oake),  like  a  bright  shining 
wal,  as  if  it  had  been  a  palace  of  gold,  or  a  great 
building  of  burnished  brass." 

The  present  roof  is  as  nearly  as  possible  a  repro- 
duction of  the  one  that  perished  in  the  fire  :  it 


IQO  /BMlton's 

is  an  open  oak  roof,  and  has  a  central  louvre.  The 
figures  of  giants  in  its  hall  represent  Gog  and  Magog, 
who  were  the  Corineus  and  Gogmagog  of  the  ancient 
city  pageants.  The  former  was  a  companion  of 
Brutus,  the  Trojan,  and  according  to  tradition  killed 
Gogmagog,  the  aboriginal  giant. 

The  crypt  is  reputed  to  be  the  finest  now  remain- 
ing in  London.  It  is  a  portion  of  the  ancient  hall 
of  1411.  The  north  and  south  aisles  had  formerly 
mullioned  windows,  which  are  now  walled  up.  The 
vaulting,  with  four  centred  arches,  is  notable,  and 
is  probably  of  the  earliest  of  that  type. 

The  Guildhall  was  founded  in  1411,  in  the  time 
of  Henry  IV.,  and  when  Milton  was  a  boy  had  at- 
tained a  certain  venerableness.  Within  its  walls  had 
taken  place,  not  merely  the  civic  banquets  for  which 
its  modern  successor  is  noted,  but  also  many  tragic 
scenes  in  English  history.  Here  the  evil-minded 
Protector  who  wished  to  supplant  his  boy-nephew, 
Edward  V.,  had  his  name  presented  to  the  assembled 
multitudes  as  the  legitimate  monarch,  by  his  oily 
courtier,  Buckingham.  The  people,  "  marvellously 
abashed,"  listened  in  dead  silence,  as  the  accom- 
plished orator  proclaimed  the  bastardy  of  the  little 
prince,  and  urged  the  claims  of  his  ambitious  uncle. 
The  speaker,  somewhat  disconcerted,  explained 
again,  louder  and  more  explicitly,  his  meaning. 


/Baton's 

"  But  were  it  for  wonder  or  fear,  or  that  each  looked 
that  other  should  speak  first,  not  one  word  was  there 
answered  of  all  the  people  that  stood  before ;  but  all 
were  as  still  as  the  midnight."  Then  the  recorder 
was  summoned  to  use  his  efforts  with  the  people. 
"  But  all  this  no  change  made  in  the  people,  which 
alway  after  stood  as  they  were  amazed."  At  last 
some  servants  of  the  duke,  and  'prentices  and  lads 
"  thrusted  into  the  hall  amongst  the  press,"  began 
suddenly  to  cry  out  aloud :  "  King  Richard,  King 
Richard,"  and  "  they  that  stood  before  cast  back  their 
heads  marvelling  thereat,  but  nothing  they  said. 
And  when  the  duke  and  the  mayor  saw  this  manner, 
they  wisely  turned  it  to  their  purpose,  and  said  it 
was  a  goodly  cry  and  a  joyful  to  hear  every  man 
with  one  voice,  and  no  man  saying  nay."  Thus  a 
bold  coup,  struck  with  a  masterful  hand,  surprised 
an  honest  people  without  organised  opposition  and 
leadership,  and  as  so  many  times  in  the  history  of 
the  Anglo-Saxon  race,  the  voice  of  a  small  and 
powerful  minority  was  impudently  declared  to  be 
vox  popull. 

One  of  the  saddest  sights  that  the  Guildhall 
Milton  knew  ever  witnessed  was  the  trial,  in  the 
reign  of  Henry  VIII. .  of  that  young  lady,  Anne 
Askew,  whose  courage  and  devotion  never  were 
surpassed  within  the  Colosseum,  among  the  Chris- 


192  flMlton's 

tians  who  fought  with  beasts  or  were  sawn  asunder. 
Having  become  a  Protestant,  she  was  driven  by  her 
husband,  who  was  a  papist,  from  his  home.  King 
Henry,  it  might  have  been  supposed,  would  have 
at  least  taken  no  action  against  her,  but  she  was 
arrested  and  examined.  The  lord  mayor  of  London 
asked  her  whether  the  priest  cannot  make  the  body 
of  Christ,  to  which  she  replied  as  shrewdly  as 
Jeanne  d'Arc  to  her  inquisitors :  "  I  have  read  that 
God  made  man;  but  that  man  can  make  God,  I 
never  yet  read."  She  was  condemned  at  Guildhall 
to  death  for  heresy.  A  daughter  of  a  knight,  this 
delicate  lady,  reared  in  comfort,  was  carried  to  the 
Tower,  thrust  into  a  cell,  where  but  for  a  few  brave 
friends  she  would  have  starved,  and  then  her  tender 
body  was  put  on  the  rack,  and  Chancellor  Wriothes- 
ley  himself  applied  such  power  as  nearly  rent  it  in 
sunder.  The  story  of  her  cruel  death  amid  the 
flames  at  Smithfield  belongs  rather  to  that  bloody 
spot  than  to  the  Guildhall.  Her  life  she  could  have 
saved,  even  at  the  last  moment,  had  her  heroic  soul 
ialtered,  and  unsaid  what  conscience  taught.  Those 
were  tales  to  freeze  the  life  from  out  young  hearts, 
that  grandames  told  in  Milton's  boyhood.  To  the 
men  of  his  day,  Guildhall  stood  chiefly  connected 
with  some  of  the  most  remarkable  trials  in  Eng- 
land's history. 


flMlton's  Bnalanfc  193 


Among  them  was  that  of  Throckmorton  for  com- 
plicity in  Sir  Thomas  Wyatt's  attempt  against  the 
Catholic  Queen  Mary.  In  those  days,  when  trial 
usually  meant  speedy  death,  his  acquittal,  due  to  his 
own  forensic  skill  and  eloquence,  is  recounted  in 
detail  by  historians  as  most  remarkable.  He  it  was 
whose  tomb  in  St.  Catherine  Cree's  is  mentioned,  and 
for  whom  a  London  street  is  named. 

The  church  of  St.  Mary  Aldermanbury  is  one  that 
few  visitors  to  London  ever  enter,  but  the  follower 
in  Milton's  footsteps  will  not  fail  to  seek  out,  a  little 
west  of  the  Guildhall,  this  church,  whose  registers 
record  that  here  Milton,  at  the  age  of  forty-eight, 
married  his  second  wife,  Katherine  Woodcocke. 
Aldermanbury  derives  its  name  from  the  ancient 
court  or  bery  of  the  aldermen,  which  is  now  held 
at  the  Guildhall.  The  church  stands  in  its  tiny  green 
churchyard  closely  surrounded  by  business  blocks, 
amidst  the  bustle  of  the  city  ;  on  a  summer  noon- 
tide, in  its  shady  retreat,  the  seats  are  filled  with 
loiterers  who  chat  or  meditate  or  read  their  papers 
around  the  central  monument. 

This  monument,  though  modern,  is  of  great  inter- 
est. It  records  the  fact  that  J.  Heminge  and  Henry 
Condell,  Shakespeare's  fellow  actors  and  personal 
friends,  lived  many  years  in  this  parish,  and  are 
buried  here.  Says  the  inscription  :  "  To  their  dis- 


194  rtMlton'8 

interested  affection  the  world  owes  all  that  it  calls 
Shakespeare ;  they  alone  collected  his  dramatic  writ- 
ings, regardless  of  pecuniary  loss,  and  without  the 
hope  of  any  profit  gave  them  to  the  world. 

"  First  Folio :  '  We  have  but  collected  them, 
and  done  an  office  to  the  dead,  without  ambition 
of  selfe -profit  or  fame,  only  to  keep  the  memory  of 
so  worthy  a  friend  alive,  as  was  our  Shakespeare.' 

"  Extract  from  Preface :  '  It  had  been  a  thing,  we 
confesse,  worthie  to  have  been  wished,  that  the 
author  himself e  had  lived  to  have  set  forth  and  over- 
scene  his  own  writings,  but  since  it  hath  been  or- 
dained otherwise,  ...  we  pray  you  do  not  envy  his 
Friends  the  office  of  their  care  and  paine  to  have 
collected  and  published  them,  absolute  in  their  num- 
bers, as  he  conceived  them,  who  as  he  was  a  happy 
imitator  of  nature,  was  a  most  gentle  expression  of 
it.  His  mind  and  hand  went  together,  and  what  he 
thought  he  uttered,  with  that  easiness  that  wee  have 
scarse  received  from  him  a  blot  on  his  papers.' '  In 
1656  Milton's  marriage  took  place  in  the  earlier 
church,  of  very  ancient  foundation.  The  present 
building  was  designed  by  Wren,  and  was  begun 
in  1668,  during  Milton's  blindness.  It  has  a  square 
tower  capped  by  a  square  bell  turret  about  ninety 
feet  in  height. 

The  register  of  the  church,  which  was  preserved, 


flDilton's  Bnglaufc  195 

records  that :  "  The  agreement  and  intention  of 
marriage  between  John  Milton,  Esq.,  of  the  parish 
of  Margaret's  in  Westminster,  and  Mrs.  Katharine 
Woodcocke  of  Mary's  in  Aldermanbury,  was  pub- 
lished three  several  market  days  in  three  several 
weeks  .  .  .  and  no  exception  being  made  against 
their  intentions,  they  were  according  to  the  act  of 
Parliament,  married  on  the  I2th  of  November,  by 
Sir  John  Dethicke,  Knight  and  Alderman,  one  of 
the  Justices  for  the  Peace  in  the  City  of  London." 
A  justice  instead  of  a  clergyman  was  prescribed  by 
the  Marriage  Act  which  was  then  in  force. 

Judge  Jeffreys  of  bloody  memory  is  buried  in  the 
church  (d.  1689). 

A  little  west  of  it  is  Christ's  Hospital,  which, 
since  its  establishment  in  1552  by  the  boy-king,  Ed- 
ward VI.,  until  the  summer  of  1902,  has  been  one 
of  the  most  noted  of  London  schools.  Its  revenue  is 
about  £60,000.  Its  removal  to  Horsham  in  the 
country  will  provide  the  ample  playgrounds  and 
modern  accommodations  that  the  times  demand; 
but  even  an  American,  to  say  nothing  of  native 
Londoners,  must  feel  a  pang  of  regret  at  the  dis- 
appearance from  the  street  of  the  bright-eyed,  bare- 
headed lads,  whose  quaint  costume  has  for  centuries 
given  their  school  its  name  of  "  Blue  Coat  School." 
Anciently  the  boys  wore  caps,  but  now  they  go  bare- 
headed through  the  year. 


*96  flMlton's 

The  school  was  originally  established  on  the  site 
of  the  Gray  Friars  Monastery,  as  a  kind  of  asylum 
for  poor  children.  Stow  gives  the  following  account 
of  the  opening  of  the  institution.  "  In  the  month  of 
September  they  took  in  near  four  hundred  orphans, 
and  cloathed  them  in  Russet,  but  ever  after  they 
wore  Blue  Cloath  Coats,  whence  it  is  commonly 
called  the  Blue  Coat  Hospital.  Their  habit  being 
now  a  long  coat  of  blue  warm  cloth,  close  to  their 
arms  and  Body,  hanging  loose  to  their  Heels,  girt 
about  their  Waist  with  a  red  leather  girdle  buckled, 
a  round  thrum  Cap  tyed  with  a  red  Band,  Yellow 
Stockings,  and  Black  Low-heeled  Shoes,  their  hair 
cut  close  their  Locks  short." 

"  Their  fare  was  Breakfast,  bread  and  beer,  6.30 
summer,  7.30  winter.  Sunday,  beef  and  pottage  for 
dinners.  Suppers,  as  good  legs  and  shoulders  of 
mutton  as  can  be  bought.  Tuesdays  and  Thurs- 
days, same  dinner  as  Sundays.  Other  days,  no 
flesh  —  Monday,  milk  porridge ;  Wednesday,  f ur- 
mity ;  Friday,  old  peas  and  pottage ;  Saturday,  water- 
gruel.  Rost  beef,  12  times  a  year.  Supper,  bread 
and  butter  or  bread  and  cheese;  Wednesday  and 
Friday,  pudding  pies." 

This  seems  to  have  been  a  liberal  table  compared 
with  that  of  the  famous  Winchester  school  in  its 
early  days,  when  two  meals  a  day  were  all  that 
were  allowed,  except  for  invalids, 


's  England  197 

Stow  mentions  that  "  the  King  granted  all 
Church  Linnen  formerly  used  in  the  Churches  of 
London  "  to  the  hospital,  as  a  superabundance  had 
been  found.  Girls  as  well  as  boys  were  lodged  and 
taught  here.  Stow  tells  us  of  the  custom  which 
prevailed  from  his  day  to  ours :  "  One  boy  being 
appointed,  goeth  up  into  a  pulpit  there  placed  and 
readeth  a  chapter  .  .  .  and  prayers.  At  the  end  of 
every  prayer  all  the  boys  cry  '  Amen,'  that  maketh 
a  very  melodious  sound.  The  boy  that  reads  is 
designed  for  the  university.  A  Psalm  is  named  by 
the  same  boy;  and  all  sing  with  a  good  organ  that 
is  placed  in  the  said  great  Hall."  He  describes  the 
grace  said  by  one  boy  in  the  pulpit,  and  the  boys  and 
girls  quietly  seating  themselves  while  "  multitudes 
of  city  and  court  "  came  to  witness  it. 

An  ancient  writer  recounts  the  joy  of  the  half- 
starved  youngsters  when  they  were  first  taken  into 
its  dining-hall  and  saw  the  baskets  heaped  with 
bread,  and  knew  that  there  was  enough  for  all. 
Among  the  buildings  which  are  about  to  be  replaced 
by  mercantile  establishments  there  is  little,  if  any- 
thing, that  Milton  saw.  Christ's  Church,  beside  it, 
where  Richard  Baxter  lies  buried,  was  built  by 
Wren  a  little  after  his  time. 

Where  so  many  famous  men  in  the  eighteenth  and 
nineteenth  centuries  were  to  be  numbered  as  students, 


198  flDtlton's  Bnglanfc 

—  Coleridge,  Leigh  Hunt,  Charles  Lamb,  and 
others,  —  the  one  name  on  its  register  that  would 
have  most  interested  Milton  was  that  of  William 
Camden  who  studied  here,  as  well  as  at  St.  Paul's. 
A  visitor  from  Boston,  Massachusetts,  is  interested 
to  know  that  in  1626,  one  little  lad  in  yellow  stock- 
ings and  dark  blue  coat,  who  studied  Latin  here  to 
some  purpose,  was  Ezekiel  Cheever,  who  became 
the  master  of  the  Boston  Latin  School.  For  thirty 
years  he  taught  the  Yankee  boys  in  the  little  wooden 
house  on  School  Street  at  the  foot  of  Beacon  Hill, 
and  made  them  learn  his  famous  "  Accidence,"  which 
went  through  many  editions.  Often  as  he  wandered 
over  the  "  rocky  nook  with  hilltops  three,"  where 
"  twice  each  day  the  flowing  sea  took  Boston  in 
its  arms,"  his  thoughts  must  have  turned  back  to  the 
walled  city  with  its  spires  and  palaces  and  prisons 
which  he  and  Milton  knew  when  they  were  boys. 

The  London  tourist,  who  visits  London  for  the 
first  time  after  1902,  will  miss  seeing  one  of  its 
most  fascinating  sights,  for  he  can  never  stand  in 
the  great  dining-hall  of  Christ's  Hospital  on  a 
Sunday  noon  and  see  the  procession  of  pink-cheeked 
lads  in  their  knee-breeches  and  long  skirts  come 
trooping  in  an  orderly  procession  into  the  great 
hall,  bearing  great  platters  of  steaming  meats  and 
baskets  piled  with  rolls.  The  "  Grecians "  and 


AUton'B  Englanfc  199 

"  Deputy-Grecians,"  and  the  less  distinguished  rank 
and  file  will  never  again  pause  here  to  listen  to  the 
Latin  grace,  nor  will  gaze  at  the  huge  canvas  on 
the  long  wall  between  the  galleries  at  either  end. 
One  wonders  what  will  become  of  the  old  desks  in 
the  schoolroom,  into  which  a  score  of  generations  of 
schoolboys  have  carved  their  names,  and  whether  in 
their  splendid  new  surroundings  they  will  not  look 
back  half  regretfully  to  the  dim  old  cloisters  which 
linked  them  with  their  great  historic  past. 

Old  Newgate  was  a  foul  prison  in  Milton's  day. 
Here  in  filthy  chambers,  gentlemen  like'Ellwood, 
Defoe,  and  William  Penn  were  thrown  together  with 
felons.  Diagonally  across  the  street  from  the  huge 
grim  prison  of  later  days,  which  since  1770  has 
stretched  its  length  along  the  thoroughfare  which 
bears  its  name,  is  St.  Sepulchre's  Church.  From  its 
tower  the  knell  was  struck  for  executions  at  the 
neighbouring  Newgate,  and  many  a  time  must  the 
boys  in  Christ's  Hospital  and  the  Charterhouse 
School  north  of  it  have  listened  in  horrified  curiosity 
as  the  bell  tolled,  and  they  knew  it  meant  that  a 
man,  blindfolded  and  with  bound  hands,  was  stand- 
ing on  the  scaffold  in  front  of  Newgate.  St. 
Sepulchre's  has  been  much  altered  since  Milton 
entered  it,  perhaps  in  search  of  the  same  monument 
that  first  of  all  attracts  Americans.  This  is  the 


200  flDUton's  England 

monument  of  that  bold  discoverer  and  coloniser, 
John  Smith,  who  settled  Jamestown  in  Virginia  the 
year  before  Milton  was  born.  Who  knows  but 
Milton  may  have  met  him,  or  have  gazed  upon  the 
dark-eyed  Princess  Pocahontas,  who  left  her  native 
forests  and  became  the  bride  of  the  Englishman 
Rolfe,  after  she  had  saved  the  life  of  the  gallant 
Captain  Smith. 

His  old  tombstone  is  nearly  defaced,  and  lies 
in  the  side  aisle,  some  yards  from  its  original  site. 
A  replica  of  the  original  inscription  is  placed  on 
a  brass  tablet  near  it : 

"  Here  lyes  one  conquered,  who  hath  conquered  kings ; 
Subdued  large  territories  and  done  things 
Which  to  the  world  impossible  will  seem 
But  that  the  Truth  is  held  in  more  esteem,  .  .  . 
Or  shall  I  tell  of  his  adventures  since, 
Done  in  Virginia,  that  large  Continente  ? 
How  that  he  subdued  kings  unto  his  yoke, 
And  made  those  Heathen  flee  as  wind  doth  smoke, 
And  made  their  land,  being  of  so  large  a  Station, 
An  habitation  for  our  Christian  nation."  .  .  . 

The  above-mentioned  "  kings "  were  doubtless 
Indian  sachems.  The  Anglo-Saxon  satisfaction  at 
the  way  the  heathen  were  made  to  flee  like  smoke, 
and  make  room  for  a  Christian  nation,  as  shown  by 
the  writer  of  this  effusion,  indicates  that  the  white 
Christian  of  Smith's  day  was  not  unlike  his  posterity 


flDUton'0  England  201 

three  centuries  later  in  the  time  of  Cecil  Rhodes  and 
of  Philippine  campaigns. 

John  Rogers,  the  Smithfield  martyr,  was  vicar 
of  this  church.  During  his  residence  in  Antwerp, 
he  had  made  the  acquaintance  of  Tyndale,  the 
translator  of  the  Bible,  and  continued  Tyndale's 
work  after  his  death.  Dean  Milman  tells  us : 
"  There  is  no  doubt  that  the  first  complete  English 
Bible  came  from  Antwerp  under  his  superintendence 
and  auspices.  It  bore  then  and  still  bears  the  name 
of  Matthews's  Bible.  Of  Matthews,  however,  no 
trace  has  ever  been  discovered.  There  is  every 
reason  for  believing  the  untraceable  Matthews  was 
John  Rogers.  If  so,  Rogers  was  not  only  the  proto- 
martyr  of  the  English  Church,  but,  with  due  respect 
for  Tyndale,  the  protomartyr  of  the  English  Bible." 

Among  the  most  eminent  men  buried  at  St. 
Sepulchre's  was  Roger  Ascham,  in  1568.  Doubtless 
Milton,  before  writing  his  own  remarkable  treatise 
on  education,  must  have  studied  the  progressive 
theories  of  this  man  who  taught  Latin  and  Greek 
to  Queen  Elizabeth. 


CHAPTER   XII. 

CHARTERHOUSE.  —  ST.      JOHN*S     GATE.  —  ST.     BAR- 
THOLOMEW'S.   SMITHFIELD 

jHEN  Milton  was  a  lad  at  St.  Paul's  School, 
it  is  more  than  likely  that  he  sometimes 
visited  the  boys  of  Charterhouse.  Let  us 
imagine  him  on  some  holiday  taking  a  stroll  outside 
the  city  wall  through  Newgate,  over  Holborn 
Bridge,  that  arched  the  Hole  Bourne  or  Fleet,  which 
flowed  southward  to  the  Thames,  at  Blackfriars; 
then  up  Holborn  Hill  and  to  the  right  to  Charter- 
house Square.  It  is  still  a  quiet  square  of  green 
shut  in  by  pleasant  residences,  which  replace  the 
handsome  palaces,  such  as  Rutland  House,  which 
stood  here  during  the  Stuarts'  reign. 

If  his  father  accompanied  the  lad  he  may  have 
recalled  to  him  the  horror  of  the  pestilence  which 
three  hundred  years  before  had  swept  from  Asia 
across  Europe.  In  foul,  crowded  London,  it  so 
filled  the  churchyards  to  overflowing,  that  in  1348, 
when  thousands  of  bodies  were  flung  into  pits  with- 
out a  Christian  prayer  said  over  them,  the  Bishop 

202 


3  ? 


's  England  203 

of  London  purchased  three  acres  for  a  burial-ground 
upon  this  spot.  Near  here  fifty  thousand  bodies  were 
buried,  one  above  another  in  deep  graves.  But 
three  hundred  years  is  a  long  time  to  one  who  has 
lived  something  less  than  ten,  and  perhaps  these 
grisly  tales  of  a  shadowy  and  forgotten  past  appealed 
less  to  Milton's  boyish  heart  than  those  of  a  nearer 
time,  which  his  father's  life  had  almost  touched. 

Above  the  monastery  doors  which  rose  here  after 
the  Great  Plague,  might  have  been  seen,  only  a  half 
century  before,  the  limb  from  the  dismembered  body 
of  the  martyred  prior,  who  fell  beneath  the  wrath 
of  Henry  VIII.  He,  with  divers  of  his  brethren, 
perished  for  their  faith  as  nobly  as  John  Rogers,  a 
few  years  later,  died  for  a  different  one.  Heroism 
belongs  to  no  one  creed.  Thus  ended  the  monastic 
institution,  the  House  of  the  Salutation  of  the 
Mother  of  God,  which  since  1371  had  housed 
twenty-four  Carthusian  friars.  Their  quiet  lives 
and  austere  fasts  had  been  in  sharp  contrast  to  those 
of  the  Knights  of  St.  John,  their  ancient  neighbours, 
whose  habitations  perished  at  about  the  time  when 
theirs  arose. 

Some  remains  of  the  old  monastery  may  be  seen 
within  the  gates  to-day,  and  doubtless  there  were 
many  more  reminders  of  it  when  Milton  was  shown 
about  by  his  boy-friends.  Perhaps  the  tall  youth, 


204  /BMlton's 

Roger  Williams,  nine  years  his  senior,  whose  later 
life  was  to  touch  his,  may  have  noticed  the  handsome 
lad  who  read  the  Latin  inscriptions  as  easily  as  boys 
of  his  age  now  read  English,  and  who  showed  a 
marvellous  comprehension  of  the  antiquities  of  the 
place. 

The  visitor  to-day  on  entering  the  chapel,  as 
Milton  did,  may  notice  at  the  left  of  the  door  a 
white  marble  tablet  framed  in  yellow  marble,  on 
which  an  American  citizen,  in  memory  of  the  founder 
of  Rhode  Island,  almost  the  only  tolerator  of  all 
religious  faiths  in  an  intolerant  age,  has  recently 
inscribed  the  fact  that  Roger  Williams  studied  here. 

Since  Milton's  day  the  character  of  Charterhouse 
has  not  much  changed,  though  many  buildings  have 
been  added.  The  present  foundation  marks  the 
benevolence  of  one  of  the  richest  merchants  of 
Elizabeth's  day,  whose  prayer  was :  "  Lord,  thou 
hast  given  me  a  large  and  liberal  estate;  give  me 
also  a  heart  to  make  use  thereof."  In  1611,  Thomas 
Sutton  purchased  the  Charterhouse  for  £13,000, 
from  the  Earl  of  Suffolk  and  his  relatives,  and  made 
over  twenty  manors  and  lordships  and  other  rich 
estates,  including  the  Charterhouse,  in  trust  for 
the  hospital. 

The  pensioners  were  originally  eighty  in  number, 
and  the  boys,  forty-four.  Hubert  Herkomer's  well- 


jfl&iiton's  EttQlanfc  205 

known,  beautiful  painting  in  the  Tate  Gallery  of  the 
Charterhouse  chapel  and  the  venerable  figures  of 
the  aged  gentlemen  who  daily  worship  here  in  their 
quaint  gowns,  depicts  a  scene  that  Milton  saw,  and 
that  the  modern  visitor  may  see  to-day.  Beyond  the 
huge,  pretentious  monument  of  Sutton,  that  fills  one 
corner  of  the  chapel,  is  the  side  room,  where,  until 
quite  recent  years,  the  boys  sat  at  morning  service. 
Now  their  numbers  are  increased,  and  they  are  more 
happily  housed  out  in  the  country,  where  outdoor 
sports  and  rural  life  can  do  more  for  them  than 
this  region,  which  is  now  hemmed  in  by  the  en- 
croachments of  commercial  London.  Stow  tells 
us  that  the  master  was  required  to  be  twenty-seven 
years  old,  and  that  the  highest  form  must  every 
Sunday  set  up  in  the  Great  Hall  four  Greek  and 
four  Latin  verses,  "  each  to  be  made  on  any  part 
of  the  second  Lesson  for  that  day." 

One  cannot  but  feel  that  the  old  gentlemen  must 
sadly  miss  their  sprightly  young  comrades,  and  long 
for  the  sound  of  their  merry  shouts  and  whistles. 
Their  numbers  are  falling  off,  for  the  revenues, 
drawn  from  agricultural  sources,  are  diminishing. 
To-day  about  fifty-five  are  entered.  All  must  be 
over  sixty  years  of  age.  They  have  all  the  freedom 
of  private  citizens,  except  that  they  are  expected  to 
dine  together  in  the  great  panelled  dining-hall,  and 


206  /HMlton's  England 

at  night  to  be  in  by  eleven  o'clock.  Each  pensioner 
has  a  bedroom  and  sitting-room,  and  a  loaf  and 
butter  is  brought  him  for  his  breakfast.  About  £30 
a  year  are  allowed  each  for  clothing  and  other 
food,  and  a  female  attendant  is  assigned  to  each 
half  dozen  gentlemen.  Thackeray's  description  of 
Founder's  Day  is  most  touching,  and  deserves  to 
be  read  by  all  who  visit  Charterhouse,  where  he 
studied,  and  in  imagination  saw  the  last  days  of 
Colonel  Newcome : 

"The  custom  of  the  school  is  on  the  I2th  of 
December,  the  Founder's  Day,  that  the  head  gown- 
boy  shall  recite  a  Latin  oration,  in  praise  of  our 
founder  and  upon  other  subjects,  and  a  goodly  com- 
pany of  old  Cistercians  is  generally  brought  together 
to  attend  this  oration,  after  which  we  go  to  chapel 
and  have  a  sermon,  after  which  we  go  to  a  great 
dinner,  where  old  condisciples  meet,  old  toasts  are 
given,  and  speeches  made.  Before  marching  from 
the  oration  hall  to  chapel,  the  stewards  of  the  day's 
dinner,  according  to  the  old-fashioned  rite,  have 
wands  in  their  hands,  walk  to  church  at  the  head 
of  the  procession,  and  sit  in  places  of  honour.  The 
boys  are  already  on  their  seats  with  smug  fresh 
faces  and  shining  white  collars;  the  old  black- 
gowned  pensioners  are  on  their  benches,  the  chapel 
is  lighted,  the  founder's  tomb,  with  its  grotesque 


flDilton's  Bnolanfc  207 


carvings,  monsters,  heraldries,  darkles  and  shines 
with  the  most  wonderful  lights  and  shadows. 
There  he  sits,  Fundator  Noster,  in  his  ruff  and 
gown,  awaiting  the  Great  Examination  Day.  We 
oldsters,  be  we  ever  so  old,  become  boys  again  as 
we  look  at  that  familiar  old  tomb,  and  think  how  the 
seats  were  altered  since  we  were  here,  and  how  the 
doctor  used  to  sit  yonder  and  his  awful  eye  used  to 
frighten  us  shuddering  boys  on  whom  it  lighted; 
and  how  the  boy  next  us  would  kick  our  shins 
during  the  service  time,  and  how  the  monitor  would 
cane  us  afterward  because  our  shins  were  kicked. 
Yonder  sit  forty  cherry-cheeked  boys,  thinking 
about  home  and  holidays  to-morrow.  Yonder  sit 
some  three-score  old  gentlemen  —  pensioners  of  the 
hospital,  listening  to  the  prayers  and  psalms.  You 
hear  them  coughing  feebly  in  the  twilight  —  the 
old,  reverend  black  gowns.  ...  A  plenty  of  candles 
light  up  this  chapel,  and  this  scene  of  youth  and  age 
and  early  memories  and  pompous  death.  How 
solemn  the  well-remembered  prayers  are  here  uttered 
again  in  the  place  where  in  childhood  we  used  to 
hear  them!  How  beautiful  and  decorous  the  rite! 
How  noble  the  ancient  words  of  the  supplications 
which  the  priest  utters,  and  to  which  generations  of 
bygone  seniors  have  cried,  *  Amen,'  under  those 
arches." 


208  flDilton's  ]En0lan& 

We  pass  up,  as  Milton  may  have  done,  the  broad 
carved  oak  staircase  of  the  period  antedating  Sut- 
ton's  purchase,  when  Lord  North  welcomed  the 
Princess  Elizabeth  as  his  guest  and  entertained 
her  royally,  five  days  before  her  coronation.  In 
these  spacious  rooms,  with  deep-set  windows,  and 
richly  decorated  ceilings,  the  cautious  princess  held 
meetings  daily  with  her  councillors.  The  lofty  fire- 
place and  the  tapestry  hangings  that  remain  recall 
in  their  dim  splendour  days  when  lords  and  dukes 
and  maids  of  honour  waited  in  trepidation  upon  the 
behest  of  the  haughty  woman  who  was  soon  to 
become  their  dread  sovereign.  It  was  in  one  of 
these  rooms  that  the  pupil  orator  gave  his  oration 
upon  Founder's  Day. 

One  of  the  rooms  not  always  shown  to  visitors 
should  not  be  missed.  It  is  the  long,  cosy  library  of 
the  pensioners.  Here,  leaning  out  of  the  diamond- 
paned  windows  upon  a  summer's  day,  or  grouping 
themselves  in  easy  chairs  about  the  blazing  hearth 
in  gray  November,  one  loves  to  think  of  these  lonely 
gentlemen,  who  have  seen  better  days,  spending  their 
last,  quiet  years  among  their  books. 

The  visitor  to  the  Charterhouse  will  not  fail 
to  spend  a  half  day  within  the  vicinity.  In  spite 
of  its  sordid  and  commercial  aspect,  it  possesses 
many  of  the  most  precious  relics  of  the  past. 


/IMlton's  England  209 

A  little  to  the  northwest  of  Smithfield,  where 
it  spans  a  narrow  and  somewhat  squalid  street, 
stands  the  huge  stone  gateway  of  St.  John's.  Noth- 
ing in  its  vicinity  reveals  the  fact  that  once  beside  it 
stood  a  conventual  church,  and  a  bell-tower  that 
was  one  of  the  glories  of  London,  and  nothing  to 
indicate  that,  centuries  before  these,  one  of  the 
richest  and  most  famous  of  all  the  monastic  estab- 
lishments around  London  was  built  here.  The 
history  of  the  Knights  of  St.  John  is  one  of  the 
longest  and  most  romantic  of  mediaeval  histories. 
The  prototype  of  their  ancient  hospital  was  in  Jeru- 
salem, where  the  knights  of  the  order  lived  lives  of 
abstinence  and  charity.  The  English  establishment  in 
Clerkenwell  was  founded  in  noo  A.  D.,  only  a  gen- 
eration after  the  coming  of  the  Norman  Conqueror. 
This  was  the  time  of  Godfrey  of  Bouillon  and  of  the 
first  Crusade.  Forty  years  later  the  monks  in  Jeru- 
salem became  a  military  order,  and  thenceforth  their 
history  is  one  that  seemed  guided  by  Joshua 
rather  than  the  Prince  of  Peace.  Large  gifts  and 
power  led  them  soon  far  from  the  simple  habits 
of  their  early  days.  Of  their  fights  with  pirates 
and  with  Turks  and  with  rival  Christian  bodies,  there 
is  no  space  to  tell.  Like  the  Christian  Church  itself, 
in  many  periods,  they  waxed  fat  and  gross,  and 
became  the  hated  "  plutocrats  "  of  the  working  men 


's  England 

of  their  time.  In  that  sweet  story,  written  in  Saxon 
English,  by  William  Morris,  of  the  monk,  "  John 
Ball,"  we  have  a  picture  of  the  brave  men  of  Kent 
who  rose  in  wrath  to  destroy,  as  did  the  Paris  mob 
of  1793,  the  men  who  long  had  mocked  at 
their  impotence  and  fed  upon  their  toil.  The 
rebels  marched  with  spear  and  bow  to  London, 
and  wreaked  their  vengeance  on  many,  but 
especially  those  whose  travesty  on  the  teaching 
of  the  saint  whose  name  they  bore  had  maddened 
them  to  fury.  They  burnt  all  the  houses  belonging 
to  St.  John's,  and  set  on  fire  the  beautiful  priory, 
which  burned  seven  days.  King  Richard  II.,  safe  in 
the  Tower,  in  vain  besought  his  Council  for  advice 
in  this  extremity.  The  prior  himself  did  not  escape, 
but  fell  beneath  the  relentless  axe  of  the  men  of 
Kent,  as  thousands  for  a  like  cause  fell  under  the 
guillotine  in  Paris. 

The  present  gateway  was  not  erected  until  the 
following  century.  In  the  reign  of  Edward  VI.,  the 
church  with  the  "  graven  gilt  and  enamelled  bell- 
tower  "  was  undermined  and  blown  up  with  gun- 
powder, and  the  stone  was  used  for  building  the 
Lord  Protector's  House  upon  the  Strand.  To-day 
the  members  of  the  revived  English  League  of  the 
Order  of  St.  John  hold  their  meetings  in  the  gate. 

With  the  exception  of  Westminster  Abbey,  prob- 


/IMlton's  Bn0lan&  211 

ably  no  church  has  more  of  interest  than  St.  Bar- 
tholomew's at  Smithfield.  Within  the  century  that 
saw  the  White  Tower  of  the  Conqueror  begun,  a 
monastery  and  church  rose  on  this  site.  "A  pleas- 
ant-witted  gentleman,  who  was  therefore  called  '  the 
king's  minstrel/  "  as  Stow  relates,  was  blest  with  a 
most  singular  vision  on  his  pilgrimage  to  Rome. 
Like  Saul  of  Tarsus,  he  felt  the  Lord's  command 
to  leave  his  old  life  and  begin  anew.  Accordingly 
on  his  return  to  England  he  established  a  priory  for 
thirteen  monks,  and  in  1123  built  the  Norman 
church,  part  of  which  stands  practically  as  he  left  it. 
Says  a  nineteenth-century  antiquary :  "  Except  the 
Tower  and  its  immediate  neighbourhood,  there  is  no 
part  of  London,  old  or  new,  around  which  are  clus- 
tered so  many  events  interesting  in  history,  as  that 
of  the  priory  of  St.  Bartholomew-the-Great  and  its 
vicinity.  There  are  narrow,  tortuous  streets,  and 
still  narrower  courts,  about  Cloth  Fair,  where  are 
hidden  away  scores  of  old  houses,  whose  projecting 
eaves  and  overhanging  floors,  heavy,  cumbrous 
beams  and  wattle  and  plaster  walls  must  have  seen 
the  days  of  the  Plantagenets.  There  are  remains 
of  groined  arches,  and  windows  with  ancient  tracery, 
strong  buttresses,  and  beautiful  portals,  with  toothed 
and  ornate  archways,  belonging  to  times  long 
anterior  to  Wyclif  and  John  of  Gaunt  yet  to  be 


212  /IMlton's 

found  lurking  behind  dark,  uncanny-looking  tene- 
ments. .  .  .  When  Chaucer  was  young,  and  his 
Canterbury  Pilgrims  were  men  and  women  of  the 
period,  processions  of  cowled  monks  and  chanting 
boys,  with  censers  and  crucifix,  wended  their  way 
from  the  old  priory  of  the  Black  Friars  beside  the 
Thames;  and  when  Edward  III.  had  spent  the 
morning  in  witnessing  the  tourney  of  mailed  knights 
at  Smithfield,  have  they  and  their  attendants,  with 
all  the  pomp  and  pageantry  of  chivalry,  passed 
beneath  this  old  gateway  to  the  grand  entertainment 
of  the  good  prior  in  the  great  refectory  beyond  the 
south  cloisters.  .  .  .  As  we  go  round  the  Great 
Close  we  pass  by  some  very  old  houses  that  occupy 
the  place  where  was  once  the  east  cloisters.  Behind 
these  houses  used  to  be  a  great  mulberry-tree,  only 
removed  in  our  own  time." 

Here  may  Milton,  during  those  dark  days  of  the 
Restoration,  when  he  retired  to  the  seclusion  of 
these  narrow  streets  to1  escape  observation,  have 
sometimes  ventured.  Here  sitting  on  the  stone 
seat  beneath  its  shade,  he  may  have  seen  in  fancy 
the  processions  of  sandalled  monks,  with  rosaries 
dangling  against  their  long  gray  robes,  move 
silently  by  as  in  the  olden  time,  and  pass  within 
the  portals  of  the  church.  And  stepping  beneath 
its  round  arches,  he  may  himself  have  stood,  as 


CHURCH    OF    ST.    BARTHOLOMEW    THE    GREAT 
Front  an  old  engraving. 


fl&ilton's  England  213 

countless  monks  and  pilgrims  before  him  have  done, 
before  the  recumbent  painted  figure  of  the  tonsured 
monk,  Rahere,  who  lies  under  a  beautifully  wrought 
Gothic  canopy  of  a  much  later  period.  Around  him 
rise  the  solemn,  massive  pillars  with  their  cubiform 
capitals,  which  seem  scarcely  less  fresh  and  solid 
than  when  Rahere  gazed  on  them  with  pride.  Here 
are  to  be  seen  the  slight  intimations,  even  amid 
Norman  semicircular  arches,  of  the  Gothic  pointed 
arch  that  was  to  supersede  them  in  the  near  future. 
Of  the  four  superb  arches  which  once  supported  the 
great  central  tower,  two  are  the  half-circle  and  two 
are  slightly  pointed. 

An  interesting  and  lovely  feature  of  the  church  is 
the  oriel  window  by  the  triforium,  opposite  Rahere's 
grave,  built  by  the  famous  Prior  Bolton.  Here  the 
prior  seems  to  have  had  a  kind  of  pew  or  seat  from 
whence  he  could  overlook  the  canons  when  he 
pleased,  without  their  being  aware  of  his  presence, 
as  it  communicated  with  his  house.  The  aisles 
form  a  fine  study  for  the  architect.  The  horseshoe 
Moorish  arch  is  much  used,  as  well  as  the  simpler 
Norman  arch,  and  there  is  seen  a  regular  gradation 
from  one  to  the  other. 

Among  the  tombs  that  must  have  most  interested 
Puritan  Milton  was  one  of  James  Rivers,  who  died 
in  1641  just  as  the  civil  war  was  about  to  break 


flMlton's  Bnglaufc 


forth,  who  evidently,  had  he  lived,  would  have 
thrown  in  his  lot  where  Milton  did.  His  epitaph 
contains  the  lines  : 

"  Whose  life  and  death  designed  no  other  end, 
Than  to  serve  God,  his  country,  and  his  friend  ; 
Who,  when  ambition,  tyranny,  and  pride 
Conquered  the  age,  conquered  himself  and  died." 

A  tomb  that  may  have  interested  Milton  is  that  of 
Sir  Walter  Mildmay,  the  founder  of  Emmanuel 
College,  Cambridge,  which  sent  so  many  Puritans 
to  the  new  colonies  in  Massachusetts.  It  was  this 
Mildmay  to  whom,  when  he  came  to  court,  Queen 
Elizabeth  said  :  "I  hear,  Sir  Walter,  that  you  have 
erected  a  Puritan  foundation."  "  No,  madam,"  was 
the  answer,  "  but  I  have  set  an  acorn,  which  when 
it  becomes  an  oak,  God  knows  what  will  be  the 
fruit  thereof." 

In  Milton's  time  many  Puritans  lived  in  the  par- 
ish, and  a  manuscript  book  preserved  in  the  vestry 
records  that  there  was  "  Collected  for  the  children 
of  New  England  uppon  2.  Sabath  daies  following  in 
february,  1643,  £2>  &-  9-"  This  was  a  goodly  sum 
for  those  days,  and  was  doubtless  much  appreciated 
by  the  English  cousins,  who  in  their  bare  pine 
meeting-houses  beside  the  tidal  Charles  remem- 
bered that  the  Puritans  who  remained  at  home 


flDilton's  JEnQlanD  215 

were  called  to  wage  a  fiercer  fight  with  priestcraft, 
prerogative,  and  privilege  than  they,  with  poverty. 

The  church  to-day  is  but  a  fraction  of  its  former 
size,  in  fact,  hardly  more  than  the  choir  of  the  noble 
building  which  Rahere  erected.  The  entire  length 
of  the  church  as  it  left  his  hand  is  supposed  to  have 
been  225  feet.  In  1539  Sir  Richard  Rich  bought 
church  and  priory  for  little  more  than  £1,000,  and 
the  thirteen  evicted  canons  were  pensioned  off. 

Close  by  old  St.  Bartholomew's  is  Smithfield,  so 
near  that,  in  the  reign  of  the  Tudors,  the  ruddy  light 
of  martyrs'  fagots  must  have  cast  a  glow  upon  its 
roof  and  its  walls  must  have  resounded  to  the 
screams  of  sufferers  in  their  last  agonising  moments. 

On  the  south  side  of  Smithfield,  in  Milton's  day, 
rose  St.  Bartholomew's  Hospital,  founded  by  Henry 
VIII.,  upon  the  site  of  Rahere's  earlier  one.  The 
great  Harvey,  the  physician  of  Charles  I.,  who  dis- 
covered the  circulation  of  the  blood,  was  physician 
to  this  hospital  for  thirty-four  years,  and  here,  in 
1619,  he  lectured  on  his  great  discovery.  The  pres- 
ent structure  dates  from  a  period  early  in  the  eight- 
eenth century. 

Directly  opposite  St.  Bartholomew's  Church,  in 
1849,  excavations  three  feet  below  the  surface  ex- 
posed to  view  a  mass  of  unhewn  stones,  blackened  as 
by  fire,  and  covered  with  ashes  and  human  bones, 


216  rtMlton'8  England 

charred  and  partially  consumed.  This  marked  the 
spot  where  martyrs,  facing  eastward  toward  the 
great  gate  of  St.  Bartholomew's,  were  chained  to 
the  stake.  The  prior  was  generally  present  on  such 
occasions.  An  old  print  of  the  burning  of  Anne 
Askew  displays  a  pulpit  erected  for  the  sermon, 
and  raised  seats  for  the  numerous  spectators  who 
came  to  view  the  spectacle  with  probably  no  more 
shrinking  than  the  Ixmdoners  of  the  early  nine- 
teenth century  viewed  the  hangings  at  Newgate. 

Of  the  two  hundred  and  seventy-seven  persons 
who  in  Mary's  reign  here  perished  for  their  faith, 
none  is  more  lovingly  remembered  in  Old  England 
or  in  New  England  than  John  Rogers,  the  first 
martyr  in  the  Marian  persecution,  to  whom  we  have 
already  referred.  For  a  century  or  more,  Calvinistic 
New  England  taught  its  children  from  that  quaint 
little  book  known  as  the  "New  England  Primer," and 
now  treasured  in  many  families  as  a  curiosity.  No 
one  among  its  wretched  little  woodcuts  struck  such 
a  solemn  awe  into  the  child's  mind,  —  making  the 
courage  of  the  soldier  on  the  battle-field  shrink  to 
nothing  in  comparison,  as  that  picture  where  John 
Rogers,  surrounded  by  his  wife  and  nine  children 
and  another  at  the  breast,  testified  to  his  faith  within 
the  flames.  "  That  which  I  have  preached  I  will 
seal  with  my  blood,"  said  the  indomitable  man, 


/IMlton's  England  217 

when  offered  pardon  for  recantation.  "  I  will  never 
pray  for  thee,"  quoth  his  angry  questioner.  "  But 
I  will  pray  for  you,"  said  Master  Rogers.  History 
does  not  record  that  his  little  children  saw  their 
father  die,  but  only  that  they  met  him  on  the  way, 
and  sobbed  out  their  farewells.  But  enough;  we 
need  not  enter  on  the  hideous  story  of  this  spot  in 
the  generation  that  followed  this  martyr. 

In  early  days,  Smithfield,  or  Smoothfield,  was  the 
Campus  Martius  for  sham  fights  and  tilts.  All  sorts 
of  sports,  archery,  and  bowls,  and  ball  games  were 
played  here,  and  it  was  a  resort  for  acrobats  and  jug- 
glers. In  1615,  says  Howes,  "  The  City  of  London 
reduced  the  rude,  vast  place  of  Smithfield  into  a 
faire  and  comely  order,  which  formerly  was  never 
held  possible  to  be  done,  and  paved  it  all  over,  and 
made  divers  sewers  to  convey  the  water  from  the 
new  channels  which  were  made  by  reason  of  the  new 
pavement;  they  also  made  strong  rails  round  about 
Smithfield,  and  sequestered  the  middle  part  into 
a  very  fair  and  civil  walk,  and  railed  it  round  about 
with  strong  rails,  to  defend  the  place  from  annoy- 
ance and  danger,  as  well  from  carts,  as  all  manner 
of  cattle,  because  it  was  intended  hereafter  that  in 
time  it  might  prove  a  fair  and  peaceable  market- 
place, by  reason  that  Newgate  Market,  Moorgate, 
Cheapside,  Leadenhall,  and  Gracechurch  Street, 


flMlton's 

were  immeasurably  pestered  with  the  unimaginable 
increase  and  multiplicity  of  market  folks.  And  this 
field,  commonly  called  West  Smithfield,  was  for 
many  years  called  Ruffian's  Hall,  by  reason  it  was 
the  usual  place  of  frays  and  common  fighting  dur- 
ing the  time  that  sword  and  bucklers  were  in  use. 
But  the  ensuing  deadly  fight  with  rapier  and  dagger 
suddenly  suppressed  the  fighting  with  sword  and 
buckler."  In  his  "  Henry  IV.,"  Shakespeare  makes 
Page  say  of  Bardolph :  "  He's  gone  to  Smithfield  to 
buy  your  worship  a  horse."  To  which  Falstaff 
replies :  "  I  bought  him  in  Paul's,  and  he'll  buy  me 
a  horse  in  Smithfield;  an  I  could  get  me  but  a 
wife  in  the  stews,  I  were  manned,  horsed,  and 
wived." 

Ben  Jonson's  merry  play,  "  Bartholomew  Fair," 
written  in  1613,  gives  a  good  account  of  the  babel 
of  entreaties  and  advertising  boasts  that  assailed 
the  ears  of  the  unwary  customer :  "  Will  your  wor- 
ship buy  any  gingerbread,  gilt  gingerbread;  very 
good  bread,  comfortable  bread?  Buy  any  ballads? 
New  ballads!  Hey! 

"  Now  the  fair's  a  filling  ! 
O,  for  a  tune  to  startle 
The  birds  of  the  booths  here  billing 
Yearly  with  old  St.  Bartle. 


flMlton's  Bnalanfc  219 


"  Buy  any  pears,  pears,  very  fine  pears  !  What 
do  you  lack,  gentleman?  Maid,  see  a  fine  hoppy- 
horse  for  your  young  master.  Cost  you  but  a 
farthing  a  week  for  his  provender. 

"  Buy  a  mouse-trap,  a  mouse-trap,  or  a  tormentor 
for  a  flea  ? 

"  What  do  you  lack  ?  fine  purses,  pouches,  pin- 
cases,  pipes?  a  pair  of  smiths  to  wake  you  in  the 
morning,  or  a  fine  whistling  bird? 

"  Gentlewomen,  the  weather's  hot  ;  whither  walk 
you?  Have  a  care  of  your  fine  velvet  caps;  the 
fair  is  dusty.  Take  a  sweet  delicate  booth  with 
boughs,  here  in  the  way,  and  cool  yourself  in  the 
shade,  you  and  your  friends.  Here  be  the  best 
pigs.  A  delicate  show-pig,  little  mistress,  with 
sweet  sauce  and  crackling,  like  de  bay-leaf  i'  de 
fire,  la!  T'ou  shalt  ha'  the  clean  side  o'  the  table- 
clot'  and  de  glass  vashed  !  " 

From  all  which,  and  much  more  to  the  same  pur- 
port, one  may  judge  that  whether  in  Ben  Jonson's 
time  or  Browning's,  whether  in  Smithfield  or  in 
the  modern  charity  fair,  the  art  of  alluring  or 
browbeating  the  man  with  a  purse  into  buying  what 
he  does  not  want  is  much  the  same.  Long  after 
Milton's  death,  the  fair  was  famous,  and  drew 
gaping  throngs  to  witness  mountebanks  swing  in 
mid  air,  and  to  view  the  fat  woman  and  double- 


220  flDtlton's  j£n0lanfc 

headed  calf,  for  all  the  world  like  "  The  Greatest 
Moral  Show  on  Earth  "   to-day. 

Now  Smithfield  has  banished  mountebanks  and 
bellowing  herds.  Only  the  carcases  of  the  latter 
may  be  found  in  the  huge  brick  market  that  covers 
a  large  part  of  the  once  open  space.  The  original 
size  of  Smithfield  was  but  three  acres,  but  since 
1834  it  has  been  over  six  acres  in  extent. 


CHAPTER    XIII. 

ELY  PLACE.  —  INNS  OF  COURT.  —  TEMPLE  CHURCH. 
-  COVENT    GARDEN. SOMERSET    HOUSE 

| 

^OLBORN  was  paved  long  before  Milton's 
birth,  and  was  a  street  of  consequence, 
because  of  the  Inns  of  Court,  which 
opened  north  and  south  from  it.  From  his  time 
until  1868  a  row  of  small  houses  southward  from 
Gray's  Inn  blocked  up  the  street,  and  became  even 
in  his  day  "  a  mighty  hindrance  to  Holborn  in  point 
of  prospect." 

Ely  Place,  off  Holborn,  is  little  known  to  hasty 
tourists  who  have  not  time  to  leave  the  beaten  track 
of  sightseeing.  But  any  one  who  has  a  quiet  hour 
to  spend  in  the  exquisite  little  church  of  St.  Ethel- 
dreda,  and  to  recall  the  glories  of  the  past  which  its 
Gothic  walls  have  witnessed,  will  be  well  repaid. 

Ely  Place,  a  rectangle  of  dull,  commonplace 
houses,  at  its  entrance  gives  no  glimpse  of  the 
chapel,  which  is  shrinkingly  withdrawn  a  little 
among  the  interloping  walls  that  now  replace  the  gar- 
dens and  the  palaces  of  Milton's  day.  In  Chaucer's 

221 


222  /IMlton'5  En$lan& 

lifetime,  the  Bishop  of  Ely  built  this  very  chapel  to 
the  Saxon  saint,  the  daughter  of  the  king  of  the 
West  Angles,  who  was  born  about  the  year  630. 
She  took  part  in  the  erection  of  the  Cathedral  of 
Ely  amid  the  morasses  of  the  "  Fen  "  country,  and 
was  chosen  as  its  patron  saint.  In  679  she  died, 
the  abbess  of  the  convent  of  Ely.  Singularly 
enough,  this  modest  lady  gave  the  origin  to  the 
word  "  tawdry,"  so  Thornbury  declares.  For  her 
name  was  sometimes  called  St.  Audry,  and  some 
cheap  necklaces  sold  at  St.  Audry's  fair  at  Ely  were 
known  as  "  tawdry  "  laces,  whence  the  name  was 
applied  to  other  cheap  and  showy  ornaments. 

After  long  continuance  in  the  hands  of  Protes- 
tants, the  church  has  again  reverted  to  the  faith  of 
those  who  built  it.  It  is  the  only  instance  of  a 
"  living  "  crypt  in  London,  i.  e.,  one  in  which  tapers 
burn  and  kneeling  worshippers  assemble  before 
shrines.  On  any  week  day,  one  may  in  three 
minutes  turn  from  Holborn  into  its  mediaeval  quiet 
and  seclusion  and  tell  one's  beads,  either  in  the  upper 
or  lower  sanctuary,  or  gaze  at  the  glorious  decorated 
east  window,  and  on  the  chaste  proportions  of  an 
unspoiled  Gothic  structure.  Its  wealth  of  windows 
remotely  reminds  one  of  the  Sainte  Chapelle  of 
good  King  Louis,  whose  jewelled  windows  in  their 
slender  lofty  frames  are  one  of  the  marvels  of  the 
island  in  the  Seine. 


flDUton's  England  223 

In  the  Plantagenet  and  Tudor  period,  vineyards, 
kitchen  garden,  and  orchard  surrounded  the  mag- 
nificent buildings  of  Ely  Place.  Hither,  at  the  Duke 
of  Gloucester's  bidding,  as  Shakespeare,  following 
history,  records,  the  bishop  sent  hastily  for  the 
strawberries  for  which  his  garden  was  famous. 

"  My  Lord  of  Ely,  when  I  was  last  in  Holborn 
I  saw  good  strawberries  in  your  garden  there  ; 
I  do  beseech  you  send  for  some  of  them." 

In  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  Sir  Christopher  Hatton 
was  the  owner  of  Ely  Place.  Except  a  cluster  of 
houses,  —  Ely  Rents,  —  standing  on  Holborn,  the 
land  round  about  this  great  estate  seems  to  have 
been  unbuilt  upon. 

Sir  Christopher,  who  rose  to  be  Elizabeth's  lord 
chancellor,  was  a  striking  looking  man  and  a 
graceful  dancer.  He  captivated  the  queen,  who 
was  very  susceptible  to  manly  beauty.  The  state 
papers  in  the  Record  Office,  it  is  said,  disclose  her 
fond  and  foolish  correspondence  with  him.  In 
Milton's  lifetime,  Lady  Hatton  —  a  gay  and  wealthy 
widow  —  was  wooed  and  won  by  the  famous  Sir 
Edward  Coke.  But  Hatton  House  saw  many  an 
cpen  quarrel  between  the  ill-matched  pair. 

In  the  time  of  Charles  I.,  a  pageant  almost  unpar- 
alleled in  magnificence  was  arranged  in  Ely  Place. 


224  rtMlton's  Englanfc 

The  redoubtable  Prynne,  who  had  preached  against 
all  such  frivolities  in  the  customary  strong  language 
of  the  time,  had  not  yet  lost  his  ears,  as  he  did 
later,  in  the  pillory.  But  his  strictures  had  given 
offence  at  the  court  of  Queen  Henrietta  Maria,  who 
was  minded  to  amuse  herself  with  masques;  con- 
sequently this  famous  masque  came  off.  Mr.  Lawes, 
the  famous  musician  and  friend  of  Milton,  was  set 
to  composing  music  for  the  occasion.  On  an  even- 
ing in  1633,  when  Milton  was  living  at  Horton,  the 
magnificent  procession  wended  its  way  through 
crowds  of  enthusiastic  spectators  toward  White- 
hall. One  hundred  gentlemen  on  the  best  horses 
that  the  stables  of  royalty  and  the  nobility  could 
offer,  all  clad  in  gold  and  silver,  and  each  accom- 
panied by  a  page  and  two  lackeys  carrying  torches, 
were  only  one  feature  of  the  pageant;  the  others 
were  some  of  them  as  odd  as  these  were  splendid. 
Tiny  children,  dressed  like  birds,  rode  on  small 
horses;  every  beautiful  or  fantastic  conceit  imagin- 
able was  carried  out,  and  the  cost  of  the  whole  was 
no  less  than  £21,000,  a  sum  which  meant  far  more 
in  purchasing  power  than  it  does  to-day.  Some  of 
the  musicians,  however,  received  £100  apiece  —  a  fee 
quite  satisfactory  to  many  a  prima  donna  in  our 
time. 

No  more  characteristic  part  of  Milton's  London 


AM  Item's  JEnglanfc  225 

exists  to-day  than  the  various  Inns  of  Court  that 
lead  north  and  south  from  Holborn.  As  the  sight- 
seer passes  from  the  jostle  and  turmoil  of  the 
Thoroughfare,  he  is  transported  in  a  moment  into 
a  silence  and  seclusion  that  remind  one  of  a  Puritan 
Sabbath.  Quadrangle  opens  out  of  quadrangle, 
shut  in  by  rows  of  unpretentious  buildings,  whose 
monotony  is  broken  by  Gothic  chapels  or  Tudor 
dining-halls  surmounted  by  carved  cupolas.  Oc- 
casionally a  cloistered  walk  under  low  Tudor  arches, 
or  a  group  of  highly  ornate  terra  cotta  chimneys 
is  seen,  as  one  wanders  around  the  dim  and 
shadowy  passages.  All  at  once  a  turn,  and  behold, 
here  in  the  heart  of  the  life  of  this  six  million 
people  of  the  great  overgrown  metropolis,  still 
stretch  long  reaches  of  greensward,  locked  safely 
from  the  intrusion  of  the  public  by  their  handsome 
wrought-iron  gates. 

In  Gray's  Inn,  to  the  north  of  Holborn,  Francis 
Bacon  wrote  his  "  Novum  Organum,"  which  he 
published  in  1620,  when  Milton  was  a  schoolboy  at 
St.  Paul's,  and  when  the  Leyden  Pilgrims  in  the 
Mayflower  landed  on  Plymouth  Rock. 

The  gardens  of  Gray's  Inn,  which  Bacon  set 
out  with  trees,  became  a  fashionable  promenade  in 
Milton's  old  age.  Pepys  tells  us  that  he  took  his 
wife  there  after  church  one  Sunday,  "  to  observe 


226  flDUton's  Englanfc 

the  fashions  of  the  ladies,  because  of  my  wife's 
making  some  clothes."  It  was,  in  short,  quite  as 
much  a  dress  parade  as  Fifth  Avenue  on  Easter 
Sunday  in  New  York. 

Lord  Burleigh,  Elizabeth's  great  minister,  was, 
rext  to  Bacon,  the  most  eminent  of  the  members  of 
Gray's  Inn. 

Its  hall,  which  dates  from  1560,  is  little  inferior 
to  any  hall  in  all  the  Inns  of  Court.  It  has  carved 
wainscoting,  and  a  timber  roof,  and  windows 
emblazoned  with  the  arms  of  Lord  Bacon  and  Lord 
Burleigh.  In  Milton's  time,  Gray's  Inn  marked  the 
northern  limit  of  the  town,  and  all  beyond  it  was 
green  fields  and  country  lanes.  Therefore  we  now 
turn  south  and  west  to  explore  briefly  the  numerous 
other  inns  that  must  often  have  echoed  to  the  steps 
of  Milton  when  he  lived  almost  within  stone's 
throw  of  them. 

Dickens's  description  of  the  little  Staple  Inn  gives 
the  reader  an  exact  impression  of  the  place  to- 
day :  "  Behind  the  most  ancient  part  of  Holborn, 
where  certain  gabled  houses  some  centuries  of  age 
still  stand  looking  on  the  public  way,  as  if  disconso- 
lately looking  for  the  Old  Bourne  that  has  long  since 
run  dry,  is  a  little  nook  composed  of  two  irregular 
quadrangles,  called  Staple  Inn.  It  is  one  of  those 
nooks,  the  turning  into  which,  out  of  the  clashing 


/IMlton's  England  227 

street,  imparts  to  the  relieved  pedestrian  the  sensation 
of  having  put  cotton  in  his  ears  and  velvet  soles  on 
his  boots.  It  is  one  of  those  nooks  where  a  few 
smoky  sparrows  twitter  on  smoky  trees,  as  though 
they  called  to  each  other,  '  Let  us  play  at  country,' 
and  where  a  few  feet  of  garden  mould  and  a  few 
yards  of  gravel  enable  them  to  do  that  refreshing 
violence  to  their  tiny  understandings.  Moreover, 
it  is  one  of  those  nooks  that  are  legal  nooks; 
and  it  contains  a  little  hall  with  a  little  lantern  in  its 
roof." 

Walking  through  the  further  quadrangle,  and 
following  the  narrow  street  down  past  the  towering, 
vulgar  conglomeration  of  every  incongruous  archi- 
tectural device,  —  the  new  Birkbeck  Bank,  —  we 
enter  presently  the  wide  spaces  of  Lincoln's  Inn. 

The  style  of  buildings,  whether  new  or  old,  is 
largely  Tudor  of  the  type  of  Hampton  Court.  The 
walls  of  red  brick  are  inlaid  with  diagonal  lines  of 
darker  bricks.  The  chapel,  of  Perpendicular  Gothic, 
built  by  Inigo  Jones,  is  raised  on  arches  which  leave 
a  kind  of  open  crypt  below,  where  Pepys  tells  us 
he  used  to  walk.  The  stained  glass  windows  ante- 
date Laud's  time,  and  Laud  is  said  to  have  wondered 
that  the  saints  emblazoned  on  them  escaped  the 
"  furious  spirit "  that  was  aroused  against  those 
"  harmless,  goodly  windows  "  of  his  at  Lambeth. 


228  /iDilton's 

At  number  24  of  the  "  Old  Buildings,"  the  secre- 
tary of  Oliver  Cromwell  lived  from  1645  to  l&59> 
where  his  correspondence  was  discovered  behind  a 
false  ceiling.  The  tradition  that  the  Protector  was 
overheard  to  discuss  with  him  here  about  the  kid- 
napping of  the  three  little  sons  of  Charles  I.  may 
be  dismissed  as  mythical. 

Beside  the  noble  brick  gateway  of  Lincoln's  Inn, 
which  bore  the  date  1518,  it  is  said  that  rare  Ben 
Jonson,  in  his  early  days  of  poverty,  was  found 
working  with  a  trowel  in  one  hand  and  his  Horace 
in  the  other,  when  some  gentlemen,  having  com- 
passion on  him,  as  did  Cimabue  on  the  gifted  child, 
Giotto,  rescued  him,  and  let  loose  the  imprisoned 
genius  who  found  Shakespeare  for  a  friend,  and 
the  Abbey  for  his  tomb. 

Of  Furnivall's,  Scroope's,  and  Barnard's  Inns, 
and  Thavie's,  oldest  of  them  all,  we  have  no  space  to 
write.  The  characteristics  of  the  four  great  inns 
are  stated  in  the  lines : 

"  Gray's  Inn  for  walks,  Lincoln's  Inn  for  wall, 
The  Inner  Temple  for  a  garden, 
And  the  Middle  for  a  hall." 

The  modern  sightseer  finds,  as  probably  Milton 
found,  much  more  of  interest  in  the  two  latter,  which 
lie  south  of  Fleet  Street,  than  in  all  the  others 
combined. 


/•Mlton's  England  229 

Before  crossing  Fleet  Street,  mention  should  be 
made  of  Temple  Bar,  which  was  erected  by  Wren 
four  years  before  Milton's  death,  and  marked  the 
transition  from  Fleet  Street  to  the  Strand.  The 
"  Old  Cheshire  Cheese  '  in  the  ancient  and  dingy 
Wine  Office  Court,  which  opens  north  from  Fleet 
Street,  probably  was  built  a  dozen  years  before 
Milton  died.  It  was  Doctor  Johnson's  restaurant, 
and  his  fame  brings  many  customers  to  sit  in  his 
old  seat,  which  is  still  carefully  preserved. 

Between  the  Tower  and  Westminster  stands 
half-way  one  little  edifice  more  ancient  than  any 
other  on  that  route.  It  is  the  little  Temple  Church 
of  Norman  and  transitional  design,  which  stands 
secluded  from  the  traffic  of  the  streets  within  a 
stone's  throw  of  Temple  Bar. 

Of  its  dimensions  and  manifold  restorations,  the 
ordinary  guide-books  say  enough,  and  make  a  repe- 
tition unnecessary.  The  round  church  with  its 
interesting  arcade  of  grotesque,  sculptured  heads, 
and  its  rare  proportions ;  the  choir,  "  springing," 
as  Hawthorne  says,  "  as  it  were,  in  a  harmonious 
and  accordant  fountain  out  of  the  clustered  pillars 
that  support  its  pinioned  arches,"  are  both  a  delight 
to  every  lover  of  the  beautiful. 

Hardly  more  than  a  century  after  the  Norman 
conquest  we  find  the  Knights  Templars  on  this  spot. 


230  flDtlton's  Bnglanfc 

The  year  after  their  removal  here  from  Holborn 
in  1185,  they  built  their  Temple  church,  the  finest 
of  the  four  round  churches  that  still  remain  in 
England.  The  choir,  which  is  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  specimens  of  pure  early  English,  was  fin- 
ished in  1240. 

In  early  times,  the  discipline  of  the  knights  was 
most  severe.  The  Master  himself  scourged  dis- 
obedient brethren  within  its  walls,  and  on  Fridays 
there  were  frequent  public  whippings  within  the 
church.  In  a  narrow,  penitential  cell  to  be  seen 
in  the  church  walls,  only  four  and  a  half  feet  long 
and  two  and  a  half  wide,  a  disobedient  brother  is 
said  to  have  been  starved  to  death. 

The  interesting  recumbent  figures  clad  in  mail, 
upon  the  Temple  floor,  are  not,  as  is  popularly  sup- 
posed, Knights  Templars,  but  Associates  of  the 
Temple,  who  were  only  partly  admitted  to  its  great 
privileges. 

Shortly  after  the  downfall  of  the  Templars,  the 
property  passed  into  the  hands  of  the  Knights  of  St. 
John  of  Jerusalem,  whose  priory,  as  we  remember, 
was  burned  by  the  wrathful  men  of  Kent  in  Wat 
Tyler's  rebellion.  The  knights  leased  it  to  the  law 
students  who  belonged  to  the  "  King's  Court." 
Therefore,  when  the  rebels  reached  London,  they 
poured  down  on  the  haunts  of  the  Temple  lawyers, 


flDilton's  Englanfc  231 

carried  off  the  books,  deeds,  and  rolls  of  remem- 
brance, and,  in  vengeance  on  the  Knights  Hospi- 
tallers, burned  them  in  Fleet  Street.  So  determined 
were  these  men,  goaded  by  years  of  tyranny,  to  put 
an  end  to  all  the  laws  that  had  oppressed  them. 

In  later  years,  we  find  that  the  Temple  church 
in  the  time  of  Henry  VIII. ,  and  later  still,  of 
Milton  and  Ben  Jonson,  was  used  in  term  time 
for  the  students  as  a  place  for  rendezvous.  Dis- 
cussions on  legal  questions  sometimes  waxed  bois- 
terous, and,  as  a  contemporary  said,  as  "  noisy  as 
St.  Paul's." 

In  Elizabeth's  day  the  Middle  Temple  abandoned 
the  old  Templar  arms  —  a  red  cross  on  a  silver 
shield  with  a  lamb  bearing  the  sacred  banner  sur- 
mounted by  a  red  cross  —  and  substituted  a  flying 
Pegasus.  Both  of  these  emblems  meet  the  visitor's 
eye  as  he  winds  through  the  labyrinthine  passages 
of  the  old  quadrangles,  and  comes  at  every  step 
upon  some  spot  rich  with  the  associations  of  cen- 
turies. 

Of  the  well-known  story  of  the  origin  of  the 
Wars  of  the  Roses  within  the  Temple  Gardens  it 
is  not  necessary  here  to  speak. 

An  old  print  of  Milton's  later  years  shows  the 
gardens  of  the  Inner  Temple  laid  out  in  many 
straight  rows  of  trees,  like  apple-trees  in  orchards, 


232  rtMlton's  England 

which  extended  down  to  the  wall  that  bordered 
the  Thames.  North,  toward  Fleet  Street,  rows 
upon  rows  of  gabled  houses,  four  stories  in  height, 
enclosed  quadrangles  and  courts.  The  dining-halls, 
built  in  the  Tudor  period,  stand  as  they  stood  when 
Spenser,  in  the  generation  before  Milton,  wrote  of  — 

"those  bricky  towers, 

The  which  on  Thames'  broad  back  do  ride, 
Where  now  the  studious  lawyers  have  their  bowers ; 
There  whilom  wont  the  Temple  knights  to  bide 
Till  they  decayed  through  pride." 

The  little  Fountain  in  Fountain  Court  is  dear 
to  lovers  of  Dickens,  for  here  Ruth  Pinch  tripped 
by  with  merry  heart  to  meet  her  lover.  In  Queen 
Anne's  time,  a  fountain  of  much  loftier  altitude 
sparkled  and  splashed  here,  and  for  aught  we  know 
made  music  when  Milton  and  Shakespeare  wan- 
dered within  the  Temple  precincts. 

It  was  not  until  after  Milton's  birth  that  James 
I.  in  1609  granted  the  whole  property  to  the  two 
societies  of  the  Inner  and  Middle  Temples;  where- 
upon they  presented  his  Majesty  with  a  precious 
gold  cup  of  great  weight,  which  cup  was  esteemed 
by  the  monarch  as  one  of  his  most  valued  treasures. 
When  the  king's  daughter  Elizabeth  was  married 
four  years  later,  the  Temple  and  Gray's  Inn  men 
gave  a  masque,  which  Sir  Francis  Bacon  planned 


/iMlton's  England  233 

and  executed.  The  bridal  party  came  by  water  and 
landed  at  the  foot  of  the  Temple  Gardens  amid  peals 
of  the  little  cannon  of  that  day,  and  with  great  pomp 
and  merriment.  The  king  gave  a  supper  to  the  forty 
masquers.  This  masque,  however,  did  not  compare 
in  splendour  with  the  one  given  twenty  years  later, 
and  already  alluded  to,  which  was  planned  by 
members  of  the  Inns  of  Court  meeting  in  Ely  Place. 
In  Milton's  middle  life  the  learned  Selden,  who 
died  in  1654,  was  buried  in  the  choir  of  the  Temple 
church.  Of  him  Milton  writes  that  he  is  "  one  of 
your  own  now  sitting  in  Parliament,  the  chief  of 
learned  men  reputed  in  this  land."  When  Milton 
was  in  his  thirty-sixth  year  and  had  published  his 
treatise  on  divorce,  he  writes  of  Selden,  then  in 
his  sixtieth  year,  whose  acquaintance  he  had  proba- 
bly made,  and  begged  those  who  would  know  the 
truth  to  "  hasten  to  be  acquainted  with  that  noble 
volume  written  by  our  learned  Selden,  of  '  The  Law 
of  Nature  and  of  Nations/  a  work  more  useful  and 
more  worthy  to  be  perused,  whoever  studies  to  be 
a  great  man  in  wisdom,  equity,  and  justice,  than 
all  those  decretals  .  .  .  which  the  pontifical  clerks 
have  doted  on."  Of  his  well-known  "  Table  Talk," 
Coleridge  observes :  "  There  is  more  weighty 
bullion  sense  in  this  book  than  I  ever  found  in  the 
same  number  of  pages  of  any  uninspired  writer." 


234  flDilton's  Bnglanb 

One  of  the  greatest  names  connected  with  the 
Temple  is  that  of  Richard  Hooker,  author  of  the 
famous  "  Ecclesiastical  Polity."  He  was  for  six 
years  Master  of  the  Temple  —  a  position  which 
Izaak  Walton,  who  wrote  his  life,  says  he  accepted 
rather  than  desired.  The  interest  in  music  in  the 
seventeenth  century  is  evinced  by  the  fierce  contest 
which  lasted  for  a  year,  as  to  the  organ  which  should 
be  erected  in  this  church.  Two  organs  were  put  up 
by  rivals.  The  great  Purcell  performed  on  one 
which  was  finally  selected  by  Judge  Jeffreys  of  the 
Inner  Temple.  He  was  a  capital  musician,  and 
in  his  case  at  least  the  adage  seemed  disproved  that 
(i  Music  hath  charms  to  soothe  the  savage  breast." 

With  the  Restoration  and  the  opening  of  the 
floodgates  of  luxury  and  licentiousness,  which  the 
stern  Puritan  had  for  twenty  years  kept  in  abey- 
ance, the  Temple  renewed  the  banquets  and  merry- 
makings of  an  earlier  day.  At  a  continuous  banquet 
which  lasted  half  a  month,  the  Earl  of  Nottingham 
kept  open  house  to  all  London,  and  entertained  all 
the  great  and  powerful  of  the  time.  Fifty  servants 
waited  on  Charles  II.  and  his  company,  while  twenty 
violins  made  merry  music  at  the  feast. 

The  Great  Fire  of  1666  ceased  ere  it  reached  the 
Temple  church,  but  it  was  not  stopped  until  many 
sets  of  chambers  and  title-deeds  of  a  vast  number 


J 

J 

<  £ 

x  -5 


3 
il 


HDUton'8  J£n0lanfc  235 


of  valuable  estates  had  perished.  Another  fire  only 
a  dozen  years  later  destroyed  much  more  of  the 
establishment  which  Milton  knew.  Of  the  Inner 
Temple  Hall  little  exists  to-day  that  his  eyes  rested 
on.  But  the  stately  Middle  Temple  Hall,  built  in 
1572,  still  stands,  and  is  one  of  the  best  specimens 
of  Elizabethan  architecture  that  London  boasts. 
The  open  roof  of  hammer-beam  design,  with  pen- 
dants, is  especially  characteristic  of  the  work  of  that 
period.  The  screen  is  an  elaborate  one  of  Renais- 
sance work,  more  interesting  for  its  age  and  asso- 
ciations than  for  its  conformity  to  true  principles  of 
art.  This  famous  hall  witnessed  the  performance 
of  Shakespeare's  "Twelfth  Night"  in  1601.  The 
same  strong,  oak  tables  of  the  days  of  Bacon,  Coke, 
and  Jonson  still  stretch  from  end  to  end.  Viewed 
from  the  western  dais,  the  portraits,  armour,  and 
rich  windows  combine  with  the  massive  furniture 
and  carved  screen  to  present  a  scene  of  sober  rich- 
ness hardly  equalled  outside  of  a  few  dining-halls 
of  Oxford  and  Cambridge  which  belong  to  that 
same  period.  Among  the  eminent  men  of  the 
Middle  Temple  whose  lives  Milton's  life  touched 
were  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  John  Pym,  Ireton,  — 
Cromwell's  son-in-law,  —  Evelyn,  Lord  Chancellor 
Clarendon,  and  many  others  of  equal  note  in  their 
day. 


236  /IDilton's  Bnglanfc 

Only  one  who  has  delved  long  in  the  biography 
and  literature  of  this  great  age  can  realise  the 
stupendous  scholarship  of  the  men  of  this  period,  — 
Coke,  Selden,  Bacon,  Newton,  Milton,  and  their 
contemporaries  across  the  Channel,  Grotius,  Spinoza, 
and  Galileo,  —  who,  with  the  men  of  action  of 
their  day,  make  the  century  in  which  they  lived  one 
of  the  most  significant  since  time  began.  What 
period  since  the  Golden  Age  of  Greece  can  match 
their  achievements?  Where  on  earth  since  the  days 
of  Periclean  eloquence  and  wisdom  in  Athens  could 
be  found  one  spot  where  so  much  genius  and  learn- 
ing had  its  centre  as  in  the  England  into  which 
Milton  was  born,  and  in  which  he  lived  for  two- 
thirds  of  a  century? 

"  We  are  apt,"  says  Lowell,  "  to  wonder  at  the 
scholarship  of  the  men  of  three  centuries  ago  and  at 
a  certain  dignity  of  phrase  that  characterises  them. 
They  were  scholars  because  they  did  not  read  so 
many  things  as  we.  They  had  fewer  books,  but 
those  were  of  the  best.  Their  speech  was  noble,  be- 
cause they  lunched  with  Plutarch  and  supped  with 
Plato."  Of  the  long  list  of  eminent  men  who 
studied  here  in  the  century  after  Milton,  perhaps 
none  was  more  akin  to  him  in  scholarship  than  the 
learned  Blackstone;  none  who  more  deeply  under- 
stood his  Puritan  seriousness  than  Cowper;  none 


fl&ilton's  England  237 

who  in  boldness,  love  of  liberty,  and  justice  more 
resembled  him  than  Edmund  Burke. 

Fifty  years  before  Milton's  birth,  as  Aggas's  old 
map  of  1562  gives  evidence,  London  had  extended 
but  a  little  way  beyond  the  city  walls  and  the  Strand. 
But  in  Elizabeth's  prosperous  age,  noble  mansions 
and  extensive  gardens  began  to  replace  the  fields, 
commons,  and  pastures  that  stretched  westward 
from  St.  Martin's  Lane.  One  of  the  busiest  spots 
in  modern  London,  that  is,  Covent  Garden,  begins 
to  come  into  prominence  in  London  history  just 
as  Milton  reached  early  manhood.  For  three  cen- 
turies before  his  time  the  abbots  of  Westminster  had 
owned  "  fair  spreading  pastures "  here,  now  all 
included  in  the  general  name  of  "  Long  Acre."  Part 
of  this  they  are  thought  to  have  used  for  the  burial 
of  their  dead.  In  Aggas's  old  map,  a  brick  wall 
enclosed  all  but  the  southern  side  where  the  houses 
and  enclosures  separated  it  from  the  Strand.  The 
property  belonged  to  John  Russell,  Earl  of  Bed- 
ford, to  whom  it  was  given  by  the  Crown  in  1552, 
at  which  time  it  had  a  yearly  value  of  less  than  £7. 
To-day  his  successor  holds  one  of  the  richest  rentals 
in  the  world.  In  1631  a  square  was  formed,  and 
the  famous  architect  Inigo  Jones  built  an  open 
arcade  about  the  north  and  east  sides.  Upon  the 
west  rose  a  Renaissance  church  by  the  design  of 


238  flDitton'6  ]£nalan& 

the  same  artist,  and  the  south  was  bordered  by  the 
garden  of  Bedford  House  and  a  grove  or  "  small 
grotto  of  trees  most  pleasant  in  the  summer  season." 
The  duke,  in  ordering  the  erection  of  the  chapel, 
declared  that  he  would  go  to  no  expense  for  it, 
and  it  might  be  a  barn.  "  Then,"  said  Inigo  Jones, 
"  it  shall  be  the  handsomest  barn  in  England,"  and 
fulfilled  his  promise.  It  was  the  first  important 
Protestant  church  erected  in  England.  Only  the 
portico  of  the  original  church  remains,  as  the  first 
building  was  destroyed  by  fire  in  1795. 

In  the  popular  dramas  written  in  the  last  part  of 
Milton's  lifetime,  constant  allusion  is  made  to  the 
fashionable  and  even  licentious  companies  that  fre- 
quented the  piazza  of  Covent  Garden,  and  it  is 
safe  to  say  that  it  was  never  at  any  time  a  haunt 
of  the  serious-minded  Puritan.  The  poet  Gay, 
writing  in  the  next  generation  after  Milton,  thus 
describes  the  Covent  Garden  that  he  knew : 

"  Where  Covent  Garden's  famous  temple  stands, 
That  boasts  the  work  of  Jones'  immortal  hands, 
Columns  with  plain  magnificence  appear, 
And  graceful  porches  lead  along  the  square ; 
Here  oft  my  course  I  bend,  when  lo !  from  far 
I  spy  the  furies  of  the  football  war : 
The  'prentice  quits  his  shop  to  join  the  crew, 
Increasing  crowds  the  flying  game  pursue." 

At  first,  peddlers  of  fruit  and  vegetables  used  the 
gravelled  centre  of  the  square  for  their  booths,  and 


W     .2 


S    ,TT      * 


— 

-  .s 


—    E 


flMlton'0  Enslatto  239 

gradually  the  market  grew  into  a  well-recognised 
establishment,  and  the  open  square  was  finally  in 
1830  covered  over.  In  Milton's  later  years  Covent 
Garden  was  fashionable  as  a  residence  for  the 
nobility.  Bishops,  dukes,  and  earls  had  here  their 
town  houses,  and  among  the  titled  residents  was  the 
painter,  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller. 

The  palace  on  the  Thames  known  as  "  Somerset 
House "  was  in  Milton's  lifetime  a  magnificent 
structure;  built  in  1544-49,  it  was  from  the  time 
of  Elizabeth  to  1775  a  residence  much  favoured  by 
royalty.  Pepys  tells  us  in  1662:  "Indeed  it  is 
observed  that  the  greatest  court  nowadays  is  there." 
It  was  then  the  residence  of  the  queen  mother,  whose 
rooms  he  describes  as  "  most  stately  and  nobly 
furnished,"  and  he  remarks  upon  the  echo  on  the 
stairs,  "  which  continues  a  voice  so  long  as  the 
singing  three  notes,  concords  one  after  another,  they 
all  three  shall  sound  in  concert  together  a  good  while 
most  pleasantly."  The  site  occupied  an  area  of  six 
hundred  feet  from  east  to  west  and  five  hundred 
from  north  to  south.  The  present  large  edifice, 
which  was  erected  on  the  site  of  the  old  one,  demol- 
ished in  1775,  is  used  for  many  important  public 
purposes. 


CHAPTER   XIV. 

WHITEHALL.  —  WESTMINSTER     ABBEY 

[GOTLAND  YARD,  the  headquarters  of 
the  Metropolitan  Police,  discloses  in  its 
cramped  and  dingy  quarters  little  if  any- 
thing that  remains  of  the  time  when  Milton  lived 
within  its  precincts.  In  the  days  when  he  dwelt  here 
and  assisted  Cromwell  as  his  Latin  secretary,  some 
remnants  of  the  former  palace  of  the  Scottish  kings, 
which  once  had  occupied  this  site,  were  still  to  be 
seen.  Hard  by  at  one  time  lived  both  the  greatest 
architects  of  that  age  of  building,  Jones  and  Wren. 
From  Scotland  Yard  to  Cannon  Row,  Westminster, 
there  extended  in  Milton's  lifetime  the  stately  old 
palace  of  Whitehall,  built  in  the  Tudor  style  of 
Hampton  Court.  A  writer  in  the  last  days  of 
Queen  Elizabeth  tells  us  that  it  was  truly  royal; 
enclosed  on  one  side  by  the  Thames,  on  the  other 
by  a  park  which  connects  it  with  St.  James's,  another 
royal  palace.  He  speaks  of  an  immense  number 
of  swans,  —  birds  favoured  by  royalty  then  as  now, 

—  which  floated  on  the  salty  bosom  of  the  tidal 

240 


THE    KING'S    GATE    AT    WHITEHALL,    LEADING    TO 

WESTMINSTER 
Designed  by  Holbein. 


flMlton's  England  241 


Thames  as  now  they  do  upon  its  sweeter  waters  at 
Runnymede  and  Windsor.  He  also  mentions  that 
deer  were  numerous.  An  open  way  led  through 
the  palace  grounds  from  Charing  Cross  to  West- 
minster, which,  although  shut  in  by  gates  at  either 
end,  was  an  open  thoroughfare.  When  Cardinal 
Wolsey  owned  Whitehall,  it  was  known  as  "  York 
Place,"  and  did  not  receive  the  former  title  until 
Henry  VIII.  had  taken  possession  of  it.  Here  the 
voluptuous  monarch  visited  his  great  rival  in  mag- 
nificence, and  at  a  masque  within  these  walls  cast 
covetous  eyes  upon  fair  Anne  Boleyn.  Within  these 
richly  tapestried  and  stately  halls  a  few  months  later, 
the  "  little  great  lord  cardinal  "  bade  a  long  fare- 
well to  all  his  greatness,  and  with  a  heavy  heart 
entered  his  barge  at  the  foot  of  Whitehall  stairs. 

Henry  added  many  features  to  his  new  posses- 
sions, among  others  a  stately  gateway  of  three 
stories  with  mullioned  windows  and  octagonal 
towers  designed  by  Holbein.  Sir  Thomas  More  at 
Chelsea  had  discovered  the  merits  of  this  artist,  and 
there  presented  him  to  the  king,  who  was  a  clever 
connoisseur  in  art  as  well  as  wives.  It  was  in 
Whitehall  that  Hans  Holbein  painted  the  well- 
known  portrait  of  the  straddling  monarch.  From 
the  advent  of  that  shrewd  politician,  great  sovereign, 
yet  vain  and  silly  woman,  Elizabeth,  Whitehall  be- 


242  flDf  Item's  Bngianfc 

came  definitely  the  seat  of  royalty,  though  the  Tower 
theoretically  remained  so.  The  library  of  this 
learned  woman  was  well  filled  with  books,  not  only 
English,  but  French,  Latin,  Greek,  and  Italian. 
Masques,  tournaments,  and  every  form  of  gorgeous 
entertainment,  from  Wolsey's  time  to  that  of  Will- 
iam III.,  made  money  flow  like  water  in  Whitehall, 
except  during  the  short  domination  of  the  Puritan 
party.  James  L,  upon  the  burning  of  the  Banquet 
Hall  in  1615,  determined  to  commission  Inigo  Jones, 
not  only  to  build  a  new  one,  but  to  build  a  whole 
new  palace,  of  which  this  hall  was  but  the  fortieth 
part. 

The  Banquet  Hall  is  in  the  Palladian  style  of 
architecture,  and  is  in  feet  in  length,  and  half  as 
great  in  width  and  height.  Its  ceiling  is  decorated 
with  pictures  by  Rubens,  painted  on  canvas  and  sent 
from  abroad.  They  represent  the  apotheosis  of 
Tames  I.  and  scenes  from  the  life  of  Charles  I.  The 
original  plan,  which  was  not  carried  out,  was  to 
have  included  a  number  of  mural  paintings  by  Van 
Dyck,  which  should  represent  the  history  and  cere- 
monies of  the  Order  of  the  Garter.  The  palace  was 
planned  to  cover  the  whole  space  from  the  Thames 
to  St.  James's  Park,  and  from  Charing  Cross  to 
Westminster.  In  Milton's  time  of  residence  in 
Whitehall  upon  the  south  was  the  Bowling  Green, 


flDUton's  Bnalanfc  243 


and  north  of  it  the  Privy  Gardens.  The  front  con- 
sisted of  the  existing  Banquet  Hall,  —  the  only  part 
of  the  plan  of  Inigo  Jones  that  ever  materialised,  — 
the  gateways,  and  a  row  of  low  gabled  buildings. 
Behind  these  were  three  courts  or  quadrangles. 
East  of  the  Banquet  Hall  were  a  row  of  offices, 
the  Great  Hall  or  Presence  Chamber,  and  the  Chapel 
and  private  rooms  of  the  king  and  queen.  The  art 
treasures  and  library  were  in  the  "  Stone  Gallery," 
which  ran  along  the  east  side  of  the  Privy  Garden. 
The  magnificence  which  was  displayed  at  Whitehall 
in  Milton's  early  boyhood  may  be  perceived  from 
the  pomp  and  luxury  of  George  Villiers,  afterward 
Duke  of  Buckingham,  when  he  came  to  make  his 
fortune  at  the  court  of  James  I.  "  It  was  common 
with  him  at  any  ordinary  dancing  to  have  his 
cloaths  trimmed  with  great  diamonds;  hatbands, 
cockades,  and  earrings  to  be  yoked  with  great  and 
manifold  knots  of  pearls  —  in  short,  to  be  manacled, 
fettered,  and  imprisoned  in  jewels,  insomuch  that  at 
his  going  over  to  Paris  in  1625,  he  had  twenty- 
seven  suits  of  cloaths  made,  the  richest  that  embroid- 
ery, silk,  velvet,  gold,  and  gems  could  contribute; 
one  of  which  was  a  white,  uncut  velvet,  set  all  over, 
both  suit  and  cloak,  with  diamonds  valued  at  four- 
score thousand  pounds,  besides  a  great  feather  stuck 
all  over  with  diamonds;  as  were  also  his  sword, 


244  /DMlton's  Enslanfc 

girdle,  hatband,  and  spurs."  He  drove  in  a  coach 
with  six  horses,  and  was  carried  sometimes  in  a 
sedan-chair,  which  mode  of  conveyance  then  was 
new  and  caused  much  outcry  against  the  using  of 
men  as  beasts  of  burden. 

We  have  already  alluded  to  the  famous  masque, 
which  was  planned  by  members  of  the  Inns  of 
Court  at  Ely  Place,  and  carried  out  in  1633  to 
please  the  queen  —  an  entertainment  so  unique  in 
its  splendour  as  to  be  referred  to  in  every  account  of 
Whitehall.  But  the  palace  is  chiefly  notable,  not 
for  scenes  of  gaiety,  but  for  that  mournful  sight 
which  struck  terror  to  the  breast  of  every  European 
monarch,  and  horrified  every  believer  in  the  divine 
right  of  kings.  On  the  2/th  of  January,  1648-49, 
the  death  sentence  was  passed  upon  Charles  I.,  of 
whom  a  few  months  later  one  of  his  followers 
wrote : 

"  Great  Charles,  thou  earthly  god,  celestial  man,  .  .  . 
Thy  heavenly  virtues  angels  should  rehearse, 
It  is  a  theam  too  high  for  human  verse." 

Cromwell  hesitated  long  before  he  signed  the 
death  warrant.  If  banishment  of  the  king  could 
have  secured  their  rights  to  Englishmen,  gladly 
would  he  have  urged  a  milder  sentence.  But  with 
the  king  alive,  he  felt  there  was  no  surety  of  peace 


OLIVER    CROMWELL 
From  a  crayon  by  Cooper  at  Sidney-Sussex  College,  Cambridge. 


flMlton's  J6n0lanfc  245 

or  justice,  and  after  painful  hesitation  he  set  his 
seal  to  the  death  warrant.  Says  Masson :  "  At  the 
centre  of  England  was  a  will  that  had  made  itself 
adamant,  by  express  vow  and  deliberation  before- 
hand, for  the  very  hour  which  now  had  arrived. 
Fairfax  had  relented  .  .  .  Vane  had  withdrawn 
from  the  work  .  .  .  there  was  an  agony  over  what 
was  coming  among  many  that  had  helped  to  bring 
it  to  pass.  Only  some  fifty  or  sixty  governing 
Englishmen,  with  Oliver  Cromwell  in  the  midst  of 
them,  were  prepared  for  every  responsibility  and 
stood  inexorably  to  their  task.  They  were  the  will 
of  England  now,  and  they  had  the  army  with  them. 
What  proportion  of  England  besides  went  with 
them,  it  might  be  difficult  to  estimate.  One  private 
Londoner,  at  all  events,  can  be  named  who  approved 
thoroughly  of  their  policy,  and  was  ready  to  testify 
the  same.  While  the  sentenced  king  was  at  St. 
James's,  there  was  lying  on  Milton's  writing-table 
in  his  house  in  High  Holborn  at  least  the  begin- 
nings of  a  pamphlet  on  which  he  had  been  engaged 
during  the  king's  trial,  and  in  which  in  vehement 
answer  to  the  outcry  of  the  Presbyterians  generally 
...  he  was  to  defend  all  the  recent  acts  of  the 
army,  Pride's  Purge  included,  justify  the  existing 
governments  of  the  army  chiefs  and  the  fragment 
of  Parliament  that  assisted  them,  inculcate  repub- 


246  rtMlton's  Englanfc 

lican  beliefs  in  his  countrymen,  and  prove  to  them 
above  all  this  proposition :  '  That  it  is  lawful,  and 
hath  been  held  so  through  all  ages,  for  any  who 
have  the  power,  to  call  to  account  a  tyrant,  or 
wicked  king,  and,  after  due  conviction,  to  depose 
and  put  him  to  death,  if  the  ordinary  magistrate 
have  neglected  or  denied  to  do  it.'  The  pamphlet 
was  not  to  come  out  in  time  to  bear  practically  on 
the  deed  which  it  justified ;  but  while  the  king  was 
yet  alive,  it  was  planned,  sketched,  and  in  part 
written." 

Three  days  after  his  sentence  the  king  bade  fare- 
well to  his  sobbing  little  son  and  daughter  at  St. 
James's  Palace,  and  walked  across  the  park  between 
a  line  of  soldiers  to  the  stairs,  which  then  were  on 
the  site  of  the  present  Horse  Guards.  From  thence 
he  crossed  the  street  by  a  gallery,  which  led  him 
past  the  scaffold  draped  in  black,  and  into  his  own 
bedchamber  in  the  Banquet  Hall.  From  there,  a 
little  later,  he  passed  through  a  window,  or  possibly 
an  opening  in  the  wall,  upon  the  scaffold,  with  his 
attendant  and  Bishop  Juxon.  Two  unknown  men 
in  masks  and  false  hair  had  undertaken  the  grim 
and  dangerous  task  of  executioner.  For  among  the 
throngs  that  filled  the  streets  from  Charing  Cross 
down  to  Westminster  there  were  many  who  would 
readily  have  torn  them  in  pieces.  The  "  martyr- 


flMlton's  Bn0lan&  247 

king,"  as  Jacobins  still  call  him,  now  that  the  end 
of  his  arbitrary  reign  had  come,  behaved  with 
dignity.  His  last  words  were :  "  To  your  power 
I  must  submit,  but  your  authority  I  deny."  From 
the  roof  of  a  neighbouring  mansion,  Archbishop 
Usher  stood  until  he  sickened  at  the  sight  and 
swooned,  and  was  carried  to  his  bed.  Andrew  Mar- 
veil's  well-known  lines  upon  this  scene  will  be 
recalled : 

"  While  round  the  armed  bands, 
Did  clasp  their  bloody  hands, 
He  nothing  common  did  or  mean, 
Upon  that  memorable  scene, 
Nor  called  the  gods  with  vulgar  spite, 
To  vindicate  his  hopeless  right ; 
But  with  his  keener  eye, 
The  axe's  edge  did  try ; 
Then  bowed  his  kingly  head, 
Down,  as  upon  a  bed." 

Strangely  enough,  it  was  on  this  very  spot  where 
his  death  forecast  the  dawning  of  that  new  princi- 
ple of  government  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  for 
the  people,  which  his  whole  nature  loathed,  that 
London  had  seen  the  beginnings  of  the  civil  strife. 
Here  a  company  of  the  citizens,  "  returning  from 
Westminster,  where  they  had  been  petitioning 
quietly  for  justice,  were  set  upon  by  some  of  the 
court  as  they  passed  Whitehall,  in  the  which 


248  flMlton's  Bn0lant> 

tumult  divers  were  hurt,  and  one  or  more  slain 
just  by  the  Banqueting  House." 

The  regicides,  who  felt  their  bloody  deed  to  be 
a  sad  necessity  for  England's  safety,  had  no  desire 
to  wreak  a  mean  revenge  upon  the  body  of  the  king. 
Unlike  those  of  many  far  nobler  men  who  had  died 
as  "  traitors,"  his  body  was  not  dishonoured,  but  was 
treated  with  due  respect.  It  was  embalmed,  and  lay 
for  days  under  a  velvet  pall  at  St.  James's  Palace, 
where  crowds  came  to  see  it.  The  authorities  ob- 
jected to  his  burial  in  Westminster  Abbey,  as  the 
place  was  too  public,  and  crowds  might  gather  there. 
But  they  accorded  him  a  burial  in  St.  George's 
Chapel,  Windsor,  whither  his  body  was  taken  in  a 
hearse  drawn  by  six  horses  and  followed  by  four 
mourning  coaches.  His  coffin  was  placed  beside 
that  of  Henry  VIII.  within  the  choir.  The  next 
month  after  the  death  of  Charles,  the  Parliament 
voted  the  use  of  a  large  part  of  Whitehall  to  Crom- 
well. Every  Monday  he  dined  with  all  his  officers 
above  the  captain's  rank.  Milton,  as  his  Latin  secre- 
tary, and  Andrew  Marvell  must  have  been  often  at 
his  board,  and  Waller,  his  kinsman,  and  perhaps  the 
youthful  Dryden.  He  was  a  great  lover  of  music 
and  entertained  those  who  were  skilful  in  any  form 
of  art.  It  is  through  Cromwell  that  England  owns 
to-day  the  Raphael  cartoons  at  Kensington.  He 


's  £tt(jlan&  249 

purchased  many  other  of  the  paintings  which  had 
belonged  to  the  magnificent  collection  of  Charles  I. 
and  had  been  sold.  Here  his  old  mother  died,  and 
here  in  1658,  on  a  wild  August  day,  amid  the  tumult 
of  a  storm  that  raged  and  howled  over  a  large  part 
of  England,  the  great  heart  of  the  Protector  ceased 
to  beat.  On  the  day  that  he  lay  dying,  a  lad  of 
fifteen  years,  named  Isaac  Newton,  turned  the  vio- 
lence of  the  storm  to  his  account  by  jumping  first 
with  the  wind  and  then  against  it,  and  computing  its 
force  by  the  difference  of  the  distances. 

As  the  dying  Oliver  approached  his  end,  he  was 
much  in  prayer;  an  attendant  has  recorded  some 
of  these  last  utterances  in  which  he  commended 
God's  people  to  the  keeping  of  the  Almighty :  "  Give 
them,"  he  prayed,  "  consistency  of  judgment,  one 
heart,  and  mutual  love;  and  go  on  to  deliver  them 
and  with  the  work  of  reformation;  and  make  the 
name  of  Christ  glorious  in  the  world.  Teach  those 
who  look  too  much  on  thy  instruments,  to  depend 
more  upon  thyself.  Pardon  such  as  desire  to 
trample  upon  the  dust  of  a  poor  worm,  for  they  are 
thy  people  too."  Probably  never  by  any  master  of 
Whitehall  was  such  a  sincerely  devout  and  magnani- 
mous petition  raised  to  heaven.  Of  the  decapitation 
of  his  dead  body  and  its  subsequent  history,  when 
Charles  II.  was  able  to  wreak  his  vengeance,  we 


25°  ADilton's  I6n0lan& 

need  not  speak.  Neither  need  we  rehearse  the  well- 
known  record  of  the  dissolute  monarch  who  on  the 
Restoration  set  up  his  profligate  court  at  Whitehall. 
Of  the  last  hours  of  Charles  II.  Evelyn  paints  a 
loathsome  picture :  "  I  can  never  forget  the  inex- 
pressible luxury  and  profaneness,  gaming,  and  all 
dissoluteness,  and  as  it  were  total  forgetfulness  of 
God  (it  being  Sunday  evening)  which  I  was  witness 
of :  the  king  sitting  and  toying  with  his  concubines, 
a  French  boy  singing  love  songs  in  that  glorious 
gallery,  whilst  about  twenty  of  the  great  courtiers 
and  other  dissolute  persons  were  at  basset  around  a 
large  table,  a  bank  of  at  least  two  thousand  pounds 
in  gold  before  them.  .  .  .  Six  days  after  all  was  in 
the  dust."  In  the  reign  of  William  III.  two  fires, 
in  1691  and  1697,  consumed  all  of  the  palace  except 
the  Banquet  Hall  of  Inigo  Jones. 

The  Westminster  Abbey  that  Milton  knew,  unlike 
the  old  St.  Paul's  of  his  day,  was  indeed  a  house  of 
God,  and  was  not  defiled  with  the  intrusion  of 
hucksters  and  dandies  and  the  bustle  of  the  Ex- 
change. Its  lofty  walls,  ungrimed  by  smoke,  rose 
fair  and  stately;  the  present  towers  of  the  west 
front  were  then  unbuilt,  and  its  mass  presented  a 
long,  unbroken,  horizontal  sky-line.  Under  its 
high,  embowered  roof,  Milton  may  have  seen  less 
warmth  of  colour  than  we,  for  the  stained  glass 


flDUton's  Englant)  251 

is  modern,  but  he  was  spared  the  majority  of  the 
pretentious  and  tasteless  monuments  which  crowd 
the  transepts  and  the  side  aisles  to-day,  and  for  the 
most  part  are  in  bulk  in  inverse  proportion  to  their 
artistic  merit,  and  to  the  importance  of  those  whom 
they  honour.  Perhaps  there  was  no  man  in  Eng- 
land to  whose  sensitive  soul  the  solemn  minster 
spoke  more  eloquently.  With  a  mind  richly  stored 
in  history,  and  with  the  artist's  eye  and  prophet's 
soul,  every  stone  of  this  most  venerable  and  beautiful 
of  English  churches  must  have  been  dear  to  him. 
It  is  not  within  the  scope  of  this  little  volume  even 
to  touch  upon  the  romantic  history  of  this  centre 
of  English  life  or  to  examine  its  noble  architecture, 
but  only  to  indicate  what  may  most  have  touched  the 
mind  and  heart  of  the  great  scholar  and  patriot- 
reformer  who  often  passed  its  portals  on  his  walk 
from  Petty  France  to  Whitehall. 

In  the  south  aisle  of  the  nave  are  buried  two 
ladies  whom  Milton  probably  knew.  They  are  the 
two  wives  of  Cromwell's  secretary  —  Sir  Samuel 
Morland,  the  inventor  of  the  speaking  trumpet  and 
improver  of  the  fire-engine.  The  inscriptions  by 
their  husband  appear  in  Hebrew,  Greek,  Ethiopic, 
and  English.  In  the  north  aisle  is  a  curious  monu- 
ment of  1631  to  Jane  Hill.  At  the  rear  of  the  lady's 


252  /Button's  Bnglanfc 

figure  is  a  skeleton  in  a  winding-sheet.  Among  the 
memorials  of  his  contemporaries  which  must  have 
peculiarly  interested  Milton  was  the  little  slab  in 
the  nave  marked,  "  O  rare  Ben  Jonson,"  which  slab 
was  later  removed  to  the  Poets'  Corner.  Beneath 
a  modern  paving  stone,  which  now  covers  the  spot, 
in  an  upright  posture  was  placed  the  coffin  of  the 
poet  who  in  his  last  days  of  poverty,  in  1637,  asked 
Charles  I.  for  eighteen  inches  of  square  ground  in 
Westminster  Abbey.  He  died  in  a  house  between  the 
Abbey  and  St.  Margaret's  Church.  Newton's  tomb 
near  by  Milton  never  saw,  as  the  youth  of  the  man 
of  science  covered  only  Milton's  later  years.  On 
entering  the  south  transept,  the  first  monument  that 
must  have  claimed  his  interest  was  that  of  Camden, 
the  learned  antiquary.  Just  before  going  to  Cam- 
bridge, in  1623,  Milton  may  have  attended  the 
funeral  of  this  man,  whose  great  work,  "  Britan- 
nia "  added  new  lustre  to  Elizabeth's  glorious  reign. 
Camden  did  for  England  what  Stow  did  for  London, 
and  preserved  the  knowledge  of  the  nation  of  that 
day.  His  bust,  in  the  rich  costume  of  his  time,  pre- 
sents a  speaking  likeness,  and  with  his  portrait  in 
the  National  Gallery  make  the  eminent  scholar  seem 
a  personality  as  real  as  Raleigh's.  Ben  Jonson,  who 
was  one  of  his  pupils  when  he  was  head  master  of 


/IMlton's  Enala^  253 


Westminster  School,  lovingly  ascribes  to  him  the 
source  of  his  own  inspiration  : 

"  Camden,  most  reverend  head,  to  whom  I  owe 
All  that  I  am  in  acts,  all  that  I  know." 

Camden  wrote  in  1600  the  first  guide-book  of  the 
Abbey,  which,  being  in  Latin,  would  have  served 
Milton  better  than  it  would  the  modern  visitor. 
In  an  unmarked  grave  lies  the  body  of  Richard 
Hakluyt,  the  great  geographer,  who  died  in  1616. 
Just  beyond  Camden's  tomb  is  that  of  the  great 
scholar,  Casaubon.  On  its  front  are  plainly  scratched 
the  initials  of  the  gentle  angler,  Izaak  Walton,  by 
himself,  with  the  date,  1658.  A  few  feet  distant  on 
the  pavement  a  slab  marks  the  grave  of  the  "  old, 
old,  very  old  "  man  who  died  in  1635  at  the  reputed 
age  of  one  hundred  and  fifty-two.  "  Old  Parr,"  as 
he  was  known,  is  said  to  have  been  born  in  1483, 
and  married  his  first  wife  at  the  age  of  eighty,,  and 
his  second  in  1605,  when  he  was  one  hundred  and 
twenty-two  years  of  age.  The  Earl  of  Arundel, 
determined  to  exhibit  this  "  piece  of  antiquity,"  had 
him  carried  by  litter  from  Shrewsbury  and  presented 
to  Charles  I.  On  being  questioned  by  the  king  about 
religious  matters  he  cautiously  replied  that  he 
thought  it  safest  to  hold  whatever  religion  was  held 
by  the  reigning  monarch,  "  for  he  knew  that  he 


254  rtMUon  s 

came  raw  into  the  world,  and  thought  it  no  point  of 
wisdom  to  be  broiled  out  of  it,"  an  opinion  quite 
to  be  expected  of  a  man  who  had  lived  through  the 
reigns  of  all  the  Tudors. 

Further  on,  within  the  Poets'  Corner,  two  monu- 
ments especially  must  have  been  dear  to  the  author  of 
"  Comus  "  and  "  Lycidas."  One  marks  the  grave 
of  Chaucer,  who  lies  under  a  beautiful  Gothic 
canopy  erected  in  1558,  after  the  removal  of  his 
body  to  this  spot ;  the  other  marks  that  of  Edmund 
Spenser,  who  died  in  1598  in  King  Street,  hard  by, 
"  for  lacke  of  bread."  Yet  Dean  Stanley  tells  us 
that  "  his  hearse  was  attended  by  poets,  and  mourn- 
ful elegies  and  poems,  with  the  pens  that  wrote 
them,  were  thrown  into  his  tomb.  What  a  funeral 
was  that  at  which  Beaumont,  Fletcher,  Jonson,  and, 
in  all  probability,  Shakespeare,  attended!  What  a 
grave  in  which  the  pen  of  Shakespeare  may  be 
mouldering  away  ! "  Of  the  author  of  the  "  Faerie 
Queene "  Milton  himself  said :  "  Our  sage  and 
serious  Spenser,  whom  I  dare  be  known  to  think  a 
better  teacher  than  Scotus  or  Aquinas."  Near  by 
to  Spenser's  tomb  is  the  monument  to  Ben  Jonson, 
at  some  distance  from  his  grave,  as  has  just  been 
said,  and  close  at  hand  are  the  memorials  to  Dry- 
den,  Drayton,  Cowley,  and  Francis  Beaumont, 
Milton's  famous  contemporaries.  If  the  poet  could 


IN    THE    POETS'    CORNER 


flMlton's  England  255 

have  looked  forward  two  generations  he  might  have 
seen  his  own  counterfeit  presentment  in  marble  upon 
these  walls.  By  that  time  the  royalist  feeling  against 
him  had  abated,  and  when  in  1737  this  belated 
recognition  of  his  greatness  was  placed  upon  the 
wall,  Doctor  Gregory  remarked  to  Doctor  Johnson : 
"  I  have  seen  erected  in  the  church  a  bust  of  that 
man  whose  name  I  once  knew  considered  as  a  pollu- 
tion of  its  walls." 

After  Shakespeare's  death  there  was  a  strong 
desire  to  remove  his  bones  from  Stratford  to  the 
Abbey,  upon  which  Milton  and  Jonson  both  pro- 
tested. The  former  wrote: 

"  What  needs  my  Shakespeare  for  his  honoured  bones 
The  labour  of  an  age  in  piled  stones  ?„" 

and  Jonson  more  emphatically  exclaimed: 

"  My  Shakespeare  rise !  I  will  not  lodge  thee  by 
Chaucer  or  Spenser,  or  bid  Beaumont  lie 
A  little  further  on  to  make  thee  room ; 
Thou  art  a  monument  without  a  tomb, 
And  art  alive  still  while  thy  book  doth  live 
And  we  have  wits  to  read  and  praise  to  give." 

In  St.  Benedict's  Chapel  may  be  noted  the  graves 
of  Bishop  Bilson,  Doctor  Tunson,  Sir  Robert  An- 
struther,  and  Sir  Robert  Ayton,  —  famous  men  of 
Milton's  time. 


256  flDUton's  Bncjlanfc 

In  St.  Edmund's  Chapel,  farther  on,  Milton  as 
a  lad  of  fourteen  may  have  seen  in  1622  the  young 
man  interred  whose  tomb  is  surmounted  by  a  beau- 
tiful figure  of  a  youth  in  Roman  armour.  Hard 
by  under  a  lofty  canopy  lie  two  notable  recumbent 
figures,  which  mark  the  grave  of  the  Earl  and 
Countess  of  Shrewsbury,  and  show  the  style  of 
costume  of  Milton's  boyhood  years. 

Among  the  monuments  of  his  contemporaries  in 
the  chapel  of  Henry  VII.  that  must  have  awakened 
a  sensation  of  disgust  in  the  mind  of  the  Puritan 
poet,  was  that  of  the  Duke  of  Buckingham,  whose 
barbaric  splendour  of  attire  has  already  been  noted, 
and  who  was  murdered  in  1628.  Near  by  his  huge 
and  ostentatious  tomb,  so  characteristic  of  the  man 
whom  it  commemorates,  lie  under  the  pavement  the 
graves  of  his  king,  James  I.,  and  his  consort. 

We  may  be  sure  that  the  graves  which  most 
interested  Milton  here  were  those  of  Oliver  Crom- 
well, his  mother  and  sister,  and  his  daughter, 
Elizabeth  Claypole,  his  son-in-law,  Ireton,  and 
Bradshaw,  who  was  president  of  the  tribunal 
which  condemned  Charles  I.  The  Genoese  envoy 
of  the  time  thus  described  Cromwell's  death  and 
burial  in  his  despatch  to  the  Council  of  Genoa: 
"  He  left  the  world  with  unimaginable  valour, 
prudence,  and  charity,  and  more  like  a  priest  or 


flMIton's  England  257 

monk  than  a  man  who  had  fashioned  and  worked 
so  mighty  an  engine  so  few  years.  .  .  .  His  body 
was  opened  and  embalmed,  and  little  trace  of  dis- 
ease found  therein;  which  was  not  the  cause  of 
his  death,  but  rather  the  continual  fever  which 
came  upon  him  from  sorrow  and  melancholy  at 
Madame  Claypole's  death."  Cromwell's  body  lay 
in  state  at  Somerset  House,  and  was  thence  es- 
corted to  the  tomb  by  an  immense  throng  of 
mourners,  which  included  the  city  companies. 
"  The  effigy  or  statue  of  the  dead,  made  most  lifelike 
in  royal  robes,  crown  on  head,  in  one  hand  the 
sceptre  and  in  the  other  the  globe,  was  laid  out  on 
a  bier  richly  adorned  and  borne  hither  in  a  coach 
made  for  the  purpose,  open  on  every  side,  and 
adorned  with  many  plumes  and  banners-."  It  is 
said  that  Cromwell  especially  loved  the  Abbey,  and 
instituted  the  custom  of  commemorating  English 
worthies  within  its  walls.  Admiral  Blake  was  the 
first  to  receive  this  honour  in  1657.  "  Cromwell 
caused  him  to  be  brought  up  by  land  to  London  in 
all  the  state  that  could  be;  and  to  encourage  his 
officers  tc  adventure  their  lives  that  they  might  be 
pompously  buried,  he  was  with  all  solemnity  possi- 
ble interred  in  the  Chapel  of  Henry  VII.,  among  the 
monuments  of  the  kings."  Who  can  doubt  that 
Milton  stood  in  sightless  grief  beside  these  tombs, 


258  flMlton's  Englanb 

before  the  desecration  of  "  Oliver's  Vault?  "  Only 
the  body  of  Cromwell's  daughter  was  left  in  peace, 
and  still  remains.  His  mother  and  sister  were 
reburied  in  the  green,  and  the  reader  already  knows 
what  was  the  vile  treatment  of  the  other  bodies.  It 
is  said  that  to  the  royalist  dean  of  Westminster, 
Thomas  Sprat,  we  owe  the  refusal  of  interment  in 
the  Abbey  to  the  "  regicide  "  John  Milton.  Had 
he  been  buried  later  where  Cromwell's  body  had 
lain,  he  too  might  have  been  thrust  forth.  It  was 
this  dean  who  esteemed  Cowley  as  a  superior  poet 
to  Milton,  and  called  the  former  the  "  Pindar, 
Horace,  and  Virgil  of  England."  In  the  south 
aisle  lie  General  George  Monck  and  Elizabeth, 
Queen  of  Bohemia,  eldest  daughter  of  James  I., 
whose  marriage  we  have  seen  was  celebrated  by  a 
merry  masque  within  the  Temple  grounds.  This 
was  the  English  princess  for  whom  a  part  of 
Heidelberg  Castle  was  built;  she  was  mother  of 
Prince  Rupert,  whose  strenuous  efforts  to  save 
the  fortunes  of  his  uncle,  Charles  L,  did  not  endear 
him  to  Milton  and  his  friends.  In  this  chapel  lies  a 
wretched  victim  of  her  cousin,  James  I.  This  is 
the  Lady  Arabella  Stuart,  whose  marriage  so  dis- 
pleased the  king  that  he  immured  her  in  the  Tower, 
where,  bereft  of  reason  by  her  miseries,  she  died 
when  Milton  was  a  boy. 


/Baton's  BnQlanfc  259 


At  the  eastern  end  of  the  north  aisle  of  the  chapel 
of  Henry  VII.  is  a  baby's  cradle-tomb,  which  has 
been  the  frequent  theme  of  verse.  Standing  beside 
the  little  marble  form  of  this  daughter  of  James  I., 
Milton  may  have  felt  a  pang  of  heart  as  he  thought 
of  his  own  little  one  buried  in  St.  Margaret's,  but  a 
stone's  throw  distant.  Of  those  who  were  associated 
with  Milton's  public  work  at  Whitehall,  was  Admiral 
Edward  Popham,  general  of  the  Fleet  of  the  Repub- 
lic under  Cromwell,  who  died  in  1651.  He  was 
buried  at  the  state's  expense  in  the  chapel  of 
Henry  VII.,  but  after  the  Restoration  his  monument, 
on  which  is  his  figure  full  size  in  armour,  was 
removed  to  John  the  Baptist's  Chapel  and  the 
inscription  on  it  was  erased.  Opposite  his  tomb 
is  the  grave  of  Robert  Devereux,  third  Earl  of 
Essex,  son  of  Elizabeth's  unhappy  favourite,  who, 
after  serving  King  Charles,  became  General-in- 
Chief  of  the  Parliamentarian  army  in  1642.  He 
died  in  1646,  and  was  buried  with  high  honours  by 
the  Independents.  In  St.  John's  Chapel  rests  the 
body  of  the  wife  of  Colonel  Scot,  one  of  the  judges 
of  Charles  I.,  who  was  executed  at  Charing  Cross. 

At  the  foot  of  the  steps  which  lead  to  the  chapel 
of  Henry  VII.,  in  1674,  —  the  same  year  in  which 
Milton  died,  —  was  laid  under  a  nameless  stone  the 
body  of  the  famous  Earl  of  Clarendon,  who  was 


260  flDUton'8  England 

born  in  1608-9,  tne  sarne  year  in  which  the  poet 
was  born.  This  famous  Tory,  the  historian  of  the 
Civil  Wars  and  Restoration,  was  perhaps  more 
responsible  than  any  other  man  for  creating  that 
popular  detestation  of  the  name  of  Cromwell  which 
prevailed  until  the  present  generation  had  been 
better  instructed  by  less  partisan  critics.  After  two 
hundred  years  his  name  was  inscribed  upon  the 
stone  that  covers  his  ashes.  Within  the  Abbey  rest 
twenty  of  his  relatives  and  descendants,  among 
them  his  royal  granddaughters,  Queen  Mary  and 
Queen  Anne.  Not  far  distant,  in  the  north  ambula- 
tory was  interred  in  1643  the  body  of  the  redoubt- 
able John  Pym,  nicknamed  "  King  Pym  "  by  the 
Royalists,  for  as  Clarendon  himself  said :  "  He 
seemed  to  all  men  to  have  the  greatest  influence  upon 
the  House  of  Commons  of  any  man,  and  in  truth 
I  think  he  was  at  that  time  (1640),  and  some 
months  after,  the  most  popular  man  and  the  most 
able  to  do  hurt  that  hath  lived  in  any  time."  *  Two 

1  It  is  interesting  here  to  contrast  John  Morley's  judgment  with 
that  of  Clarendon : 

"  Surrounded  by  men  who  were  often  apt  to  take  other  views, 
Pym,  if  ever  English  statesmen  did,  took  broad  ones ;  and  to  impose 
broad  views  upon  the  narrow  is  one  of  the  things  that  a  party  leader 
exists  for.  He  had  the  double  gift,  so  rare  even  among  leaders  in 
popular  assemblies,  of  being  at  once  practical  and  elevated ;  a  master 
of  tactics  and  organising  arts,  and  yet  the  inspirer  of  sound  and 
lofty  principles.  How  can  we  measure  the  perversity  of  a  king  and 


/IMlton's  BnQlanfc  261 


years  after  Pym's  burial,  there  was  laid  close  to 
his  grave  the  body  of  William  Strode,  one  of  the 
five  members  demanded  by  Charles  I.  when  he  made 
his  famous  entry  into  the  House  of  Commons  with 
an  armed  force  in  1641-2.  The  bodies  of  both  were 
exhumed  in  1661,  and  flung  with  others  of  their 
compatriots  into  a  pit  outside  the  Abbey  walls. 
There  is  every  reason  to  assume  that  Milton  would 
have  attended  the  funerals  of  both  of  these  men.  A 
man  whom  he  must  have  known  well  by  reputation, 
Doctor  Peter  Heylin,  who  died  in  1662,  is  buried 
beneath  the  sub-dean's  seat  in  the  north  aisle  of  the 
choir.  He  was  Laud's  chaplain,  and  wrote  a  life  of 
the  great  archbishop;  under  Charles  I.  he  had  for 
a  time  supreme  authority  in  the  Abbey  and  super- 
intended its  repairs.  During  the  Civil  War  he  suf- 
fered and  was  deprived  of  his  property,  but  on  the 
accession  of  Charles  II.,  he  was  reinstated  in  the 
Abbey.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  coronation 
chair  of  oak,  decorated  with  false  jewels,  which  has 
been  used  at  coronations  since  the  time  of  Ed- 
ward I.,  has  never  left  the  Abbey  except  when  it 
was  taken  to  Westminster  Hall,  when  Oliver  Crom- 
well was  there  installed  as  Lord  Protector. 

counsellors  who  forced  into  opposition  a  man  so  imbued  with  the 
deep  instinct  of  government,  so  whole-hearted,  so  keen  of  sight,  so 
skilful  in  resource  as  Pym  ?  " 


262  /iDUton's 

A  few  of  the  scenes  that  the  great  minster  wit- 
nessed in  Milton's  time  may  be  alluded  to.  The 
funeral  of  James  I.  in  1625  was  the  most  magnifi- 
cent that  England  had  ever  seen.  The  hearse  was 
fashioned  by  Inigo  Jones.  The  sermon  was  two 
hours  in  length.  Mourning  cloaks  were  given  to 
nine  thousand  persons,  and  the  rest  of  the  outlay 
was  proportionate.  No  wonder  that  Charles  I. 
within  two  months  sent  word  to  the  Commons  that 
"  the  ordinary  revenue  is  clogged  with  debts,  and 
exhausted  with  the  late  king's  funeral  and  other 
expenses  of  necessity  and  honour."  The  Abbey 
suffered  somewhat  from  the  Puritan  hatred  of 
images  and  "  idolatry,"  during  the  Commonwealth. 
By  order  of  Parliament  the  sacred  vestments  were 
seized  and  burned.  Of  the  curious  wax  effigies  of 
monarchs  who  antedated  Milton's  death,  only  one 
is  still  preserved.  It  is  that  of  Charles  II.  and  is 
robed  in  red  velvet  with  collar  and  ruffles  of  real 
point  lace.  For  a  long  time  it  stood  above  his  grave 
in  the  chapel  of  Henry  VII.  These  waxworks  used 
to  be  publicly  exhibited,  after  which  the  cap  was 
passed  around  for  contributions.  Milton,  in  his 
boyhood,  may  have  gazed  in  wonder  at  the  gorgeous 
figure  of  Elizabeth  arrayed  as  a  later  one  still  is 
to-day,  in  her  own  jewelled  stomacher  and  velvet 
robe  embroidered  with  gold;  doubtless  he  found 


flMlton's  EnQlanfc  263 


a  visit  to  the  effigies  of  Westminster  Abbey  as 
entertaining  as  a  modern  boy  finds  a  visit  to  Madame 
Tussaud's  to-day.  From  the  time  of  Edward  I.  it 
was  customary  to  make  effigies  of  kings.  Up  to  the 
time  of  Henry  V.  the  embalmed  bodies  and  not  the 
effigies  were  displayed  upon  the  funeral  car.  At 
first  these  figures  were  made  of  wood,  with  perhaps 
the  faces  and  hands  of  plaster.  These  were  set  up 
in  the  church  for  a  season,  after  which  many  of 
them  were  preserved  in  presses  standing  in  a  row, 
and  shown  as  has  been  described.  In  Milton's 
time  it  seems  evident  that  the  list  included  Edward 
I.  and  Eleanor,  Edward  III.  and  Philippa,  Henry 
V.  and  Katherine,  Henry  VII.  and  Elizabeth  of 
York,  James  I.  and  Anne  of  Denmark,  and  Henry, 
Prince  of  Wales. 

It  is  probable  that  Sir  Christopher  Wren's  plan 
for  the  completion  of  the  Abbey  would  have  materi- 
ally added  to  its  beauty.  His  scheme  is  said  to 
have  included  a  graceful  Gothic  spire  rising  from 
the  low  central  tower.  The  incongruous  towers  of 
the  west  front  were  chiefly  due  to  Hawksmore. 


CHAPTER    XV. 

THE   PRECINCTS   OF   THE   ABBEY.  —  WESTMINSTER 
PALACE.  —  ST.    MARGARET'S 

'URING  the  Civil  War,  the  spot  within 
Westminster  which  most  interested  every 
reformer  was  that  where,  for  over  five 
years,  the  famous  Westminster  Assembly  gathered. 
During  that  time  this  body  of  one  hundred  and 
forty-nine  prelates  and  learned  men  held  over  fifteen 
hundred  sessions,  at  first  in  the  chapel  of  Henry 
VII.,  and  later  in  the  warmer  and  cosier  apartment 
known  as  the  "  Jerusalem  Chamber."  This  room 
was  in  the  present  generation  occupied  by  the 
scholars  who  for  years  laboured  together  on  the 
revised  version  of  the  Bible.  The  Assembly  was 
called  by  Parliament  "  to  be  consulted  with  by 
them  on  the  settling  of  the  government  and  liturgy 
of  the  Church,  and  for  the  vindicating  and  clearing 
of  the  doctrine  of  the  Church  of  England  from  false 
aspersions  and  interpretations."  In  that  age,  when 
religious  questions  were  paramount,  the  work  that 
devolved  upon  these  men  demanded  insight,  honesty, 

and  great  courage.    The  members,  for  the  most  part, 

264 


flMlton's  England  265 

were  elected  from  the  different  counties  and  merely 
confirmed  by  Parliament ;  but  to  these,  ten  members 
of  the  House  of  Lords  and  twenty  members  of  the 
House  of  Commons  were  added.  Only  those  ques- 
tions could  be  considered  that  should  be  proposed  by 
either  or  both  houses  of  Parliament.  Four  shillings 
a  day  for  his  expenses  was  allowed  each  clerical 
member,  with  freedom  from  all  other  duties  except 
attendance  on  the  Assembly.  Among  the  one  hun- 
dred and  forty-nine  were  several  members,  like 
Archbishop  Usher,  who  were  defenders  of  Episco- 
pacy. In  that  age  no  modern  questions  as  to 
inspiration  disturbed  the  minds  of  devout  men,  but 
church  government  was  to  them  a  matter  of  such 
serious  moment  as  the  modern  mind  can  scarcely 
understand.  As  the  results  of  these  prolonged  and 
serious  conferences,  Dean  Stanley  says  we  have  the 
"  Directory,  the  Longer  and  Shorter  Catechism,  and 
that  famous  Confession  of  Faith  which,  alone 
within  these  Islands,  was  imposed  by  law  on  the 
whole  kingdom ;  and  which,  alone  of  all  Protestant 
Confessions,  still,  in  spite  of  its  sternness  and 
narrowness,  retains  a  hold  on  the  minds  of  its 
adherents  to  which  its  fervour  and  its  logical 
coherence  in  some  measure  entitle  it." 

During    Milton's    lifetime    the    Chapter    House, 
which  had  become  public  property  after  the  Dissolu- 


266  flMlton's 

tion,  was  used  for  storing  public  documents,  and 
here  he  may  have  seen  the  ancient  Domesday  Book, 
which  until  within  fifty  years  was  treasured  there. 
At  the  time  of  the  Commonwealth,  the  ancient 
chamber  close  by  the  Chapter  House,  and  known 
as  the  "  Pyx,"  held  the  regalia,  and  was  broken 
open  by  the  officers  of  the  House  of  Commons,  in 
order  to  make  an  inventory,  when  the  Church  au- 
thorities refused  to  surrender  the  keys.  The  Pyx  no 
longer  holds  the  regalia,  which,  after  the  Restora- 
tion, was  transferred  to  the  Tower.  The  keys  of 
its  double  doors  are  seven,  and  are  deposited  with 
seven  distinct  officers  of  the  Exchequer.  The  door 
is  lined  with  human  skins.  Within  the  cloisters 
Henry  Lawes,  the  musician,  was  buried  in  1662. 

Near  by  the  Abbey  stands  Westminster  School, 
founded  early  in  the  sixteenth  century  upon  the 
site  of  the  ancient  monastery.  The  dormitory  has 
been  turned  into  a  noble  schoolroom  ninety-six  feet 
in  length.  Camden,  the  famous  antiquary,  was  once 
master  of  the  school,  and  among  its  famous  pupils 
whose  lives  touched  Milton's,  were  the  poets,  George 
Herbert,  Cowley,  who  published  poems  while  he 
was  at  school  here,  and  Dryden.  Among  men 
famous  in  other  walks  of  life  were  the  great  geog- 
rapher, Hakluyt,  and  Sir  Christopher  Wren.  Hak- 
luyt,  who  died  the  same  year  that  Shakespeare  died, 


flMlton's  Engla^  267 


in  1616,  tells  us  that  his  interest  in  discovery  and 
in  naval  science  began  when  he  was  a  Queen's 
Scholar  in  "  that  fruitful  nurserie."  At  Oxford  he 
pursued  his  favourite  studies,  and  read  "  whatso- 
ever printed  or  written  discoveries  or  voyages  he 
found  extant  in  Greeke,  Latine,  Italian,  Spanish, 
Portugall,  French,  or  Englishe  languages."  Evelyn 
says  in  his  "  Diary  :  "  On  "  May  I3th,  1661,  I  heard 
and  saw  such  exercises  at  the  election  of  scholars 
at  Westminster  Schools  to  be  sent  to  the  university, 
in  Latin,  Greek,  Hebrew,  and  Arabic,  in  themes  and 
extempry  verses,  as  wonderfully  astonished  me  in 
such  youths,  with  such  readiness  and  wit,  some  of 
whom  not  above  twelve  or  thirteen  years  of  age." 
Here  Milton  may  have  witnessed,  on  a  Christmas- 
tide,  a  play  of  Plautus  or  of  Terence,  given  by 
the  boys  of  Westminster  according  to  their  annual 
custom,  which  is  still  maintained. 

In  the  seventeenth  century,  the  double  Gatehouse 
of  Westminster,  which  once  stood  on  the  site  of  the 
Royal  Aquarium  of  to-day,  held  as  prisoner  Sir 
Walter  Raleigh,  who  passed  the  last  night  of  his  life 
here.  The  night  before  his  execution  his  cousin 
called  on  him;  Raleigh  tried  to  relieve  his  sadness 
with  pleasantry,  when  his  cousin  remonstrated  with 
the  words,  "  Sir,  take  heed  you  go  not  too  much 
upon  the  brave  hand,  for  your  enemies  will  take 


268  /iDilton's  Bnglaufc 

exceptions  at  that."  "  Good  Charles,"  replied  Ral- 
eigh, "  give  me  leave  to  be  merry,  for  this  is  the 
last  merriment  that  ever  I  shall  have  in  this  world, 
but  when  I  come  to  the  last  part,  thou  shalt  see  I 
will  look  on  it  like  a  man,"  and  even  so  he  did. 
When  he  had  reached  the  scaffold  in  Palace  Yard 
the  next  day,  and  had  taken  off  his  gown  and  doub- 
let, he  asked  the  executioner  to  show  him  his  axe. 
When  he  had  taken  it  in  his  hands  he  felt  along 
the  edge,  and  smiling  said :  "  This  is  a  sharp  medi- 
cine, but  it  is  a  physician  for  all  diseases."  Then 
he  granted  his  forgiveness  to  the  sheriff  who  knelt 
before  him.  When  his  head  was  on  the  block,  before 
the  fatal  blow,  he  said :  "  So  the  heart  be  right, 
it  is  no  matter  which  way  the  head  lies."  So 
perished  the  bold  discoverer  and  coloniser,  the 
author  and  gallant  knight,  when  ten-year-old  John 
Milton  lived  in  Bread  Street.  Near  the  spot  where 
his  body  rests  in  the  church  of  St.  Margaret's,  West- 
minster, now  rises  a  memorial  window  presented  by 
Americans  and  inscribed  by  Lowell  in  remembrance 
of  Raleigh's  connection  with  America: 

"  The  New  World's  sons,  from  England's  breasts  we  drew 

Such  milk  as  bids  remember  whence  we  came ; 
Proud  of  her  past,  wherefrom  our  future  grew, 
This  window  we  inscribe  with  Raleigh's  name." 

Iii  this  prison,  afterward,  John  Hampden  and  Sir 
John  Eliot  were  confined,  and  Richard  Lovelace, 


/IMlton's  EnQlanfc  269 


who  was  imprisoned  for  his  devotion  to  Charles  I., 
wrote  the  well-known  lines  : 

"  Stone  walls  do  not  a  prison  make, 

Nor  iron  bars  a  cage  ; 
Minds  innocent  and  quiet  take 
That  for  a  hermitage." 

Where  Westminster  Palace  Hotel  now  stands, 
in  the  ancient  Almonry  of  the  Abbey,  Caxton  set 
up  his  press,  and  in  1474  printed  his  first  book  — 
the  "  Game  and  Play  of  Chess." 

In  Milton's  day,  a  grim  old  fortress  marked  the 
"  Sanctuary,"  or  place  of  refuge  for  criminals. 
From  the  sacred  shelter  of  this  retreat  the  mother 
of  the  little  Edward  V.  surrendered  him  with  sad 
misgiving  to  his  cruel  uncle,  who  carried  .  him  to 
the  Tower.  This  spot  was  a  resort  for  persecuted 
saint  and  guilty  sinner.  Within  its  walls  he  was 
as  secure  as  was  the  ancient  Hebrew  in  his  city  of 
refuge.  When  Milton  lived  in  Petty  France  and 
passed  from  there  to  Whitehall  by  the  Sanctuary,  it 
had  fallen  into  disrepute  and  only  the  most  aban- 
doned sought  its  shelter.  The  Sanctuary  at  West- 
minster was  only  one  of  thirty  known  to  have  been 
contemporaneous  with  it  in  the  monasteries  of  Eng- 
land before  the  Dissolution. 

The  magnificent  royal  palace  of  Westminster, 
\vhich  was  built  by  Edward  the  Confessor,  and 


270  flMlton's  Englanfc 

improved  by  William  the  Conqueror,  had  largely 
disappeared  in  Milton's  time.  The  Great  Hall  and 
the  crypt  under  the  chapel  of  St.  Stephen  are 
almost  all  that  now  remain,  but  Milton,  in  addition 
to  these,  saw  the  chapel  itself  and  its  cloisters,  and 
the  famous  "  Star  Chamber  "  and  "  Painted  Cham- 
ber," which  were  preserved  until  the  fire  which 
burned  the  Houses  of  Parliament  in  1834.  Previous 
to  the  Dissolution,  the  Commons  had  sat  within  the 
ancient  Chapter  House  of  the  Abbey,  at  an  incon- 
venient distance  from  the  House  of  Lords.  Then 
they  were  transferred  to  St.  Stephen's  Chapel,  an 
oblong  building  ninety  feet  in  length  and  thirty  in 
width,  which  had  externally  at  each  corner  an 
octagonal  tower.  It  was  lighted  by  five  windows 
on  each  side,  between  which  its  walls  were  supported 
by  great  buttresses.  It  had  two  stories,  and  the  upper 
one  was  occupied  by  the  House  of  Commons.  These 
walls  have  echoed  to  the  ringing  words  of  Eliot, 
Hampden,  Pym,  Sir  Harry  Vane,  and  Cromwell, 
to  Burke  and  Fox  and  Pitt,  and  the  long  line  of 
valiant  Englishmen  who  never  confounded  patriot- 
ism and  loyalty  to  country  with  subserviency  to  the 
will  of  any  fallible  man  whom  chance  had  placed 
upon  the  nation's  throne.  Here  Eliot,  in  sharp, 
emphatic  words,  which  contrasted  with  the  ponder- 
ous phraseology  of  the  time,  cried  out  against  the 


Abilton's  Englaito  271 

gorgeously  apparelled  and  arrogant  Buckingham: 
"  He  has  broken  those  nerves  and  sinews  of  our 
land,  the  stores  and  treasures  of  the  king.  There 
needs  no  search  for  it.  It  is  too  visible.  His 
profuse  expenses,  his  superfluous  feasts,  his  mag- 
nificent buildings,  his  riots,  his  excesses,  what  are 
they  but  the  visible  evidences  of  an  express  ex- 
hausting of  the  state,  a  chronicle  of  his  waste  of 
the  revenues  of  the  Crown?  .  .  .  Through  the 
power  of  state  and  justice  he  has  dared  ever  to  strike 
at  his  own  ends."  Bold  words!  which  took  more 
courage  than  to  face  the  cannon's  mouth,  for  his 
protest  then  and  later  meant  to  face  a  dungeon  in 
the  Tower,  from  which  only  death  gave  him  release. 
But  Eliot's  words  were  a  tonic  to  his  fellows, 
and  when  they  met  two  years  later,  in  1628,  Sir 
Thomas  Wentworth  showed  himself  a  worthy  fol- 
lower :  "  We  must  vindicate  our  ancient  liberties," 
said  he,  "  we  must  reinforce  the  laws  made  by  our 
ancestors.  We  must  set  such  a  stamp  upon  them,  as 
no  licentious  spirit  shall  dare  hereafter  to  invade 
them."  Of  the  Petition  of  Right,  and  the  Remon- 
strance; of  the  dissolution  of  Parliament,  and  the 
eleven  years  when  these  walls  were  silent;  of 
Charles's  revival  of  Star  Chamber  trials  to  fill  his 
empty  exchequer  by  the  fines,  and  the  Parliamentary 
history  of  the  Civil  War,  and  all  that  centres  around 


272  flDUton's 

these  walls  which  echoed  with  the  eloquence  of 
England's  noblest  statesmen,  there  is  no  space  to 
speak. 

The  Star  Chamber  was  probably  so  named  from 
being  anciently  ornamented  with  golden  stars.  It 
stood  parallel  with  the  river  on  the  eastern  side 
of  Palace  Yard  and  was  formerly  the  council 
chamber  of  the  police.  It  was  a  beautiful  panelled 
room  with  mullioned  windows.  The  lords  who 
tried  offences  were  bound  by  no  law,  but  they 
created  and  defined  the  offences  which  they  pun- 
ished. Every  penalty  except  death  could  be  inflicted. 
In  such  tyrannies  the  Star  Chamber  could  have 
been  exceeded  only  by  the  terrible  Council  of  Ten 
in  Venice.  One  of  the  first  deeds  of  the  new  Parlia- 
ment of  1641  was  to  abolish  the  Star  Chamber. 
That  year  a  mob  of  six  thousand  citizens  in  Old 
Palace  Yard  had  come  armed  with  swords  and 
clubs,  and  had  seized  the  entrance  to  the  House  of 
Lords  and  called  for  justice  against  Lord  Strafford. 

The  Painted  Chamber  was  named  from  its  mural 
decorations,  which  antedated  Milton's  time  at  least 
three  hundred  years.  It  was  strangely  proportioned, 
eighty  feet  long,  twenty  broad,  and  fifty  feet  high. 
Here  the  Confessor  died.  Here  was  the  trial  of 
Charles  I.  when  it  was  adjourned  from  Westminster 
Hall.  Here  his  death  warrant  was  signed,  which 


flMlton's  EttQlanfc  273 

is  now  preserved  within  the  library  of  the  House  of 
Lords. 

Says  Knight :  "  Amid  all  the  misgovernment  of 
the  reign  of  Charles  II.,  the  rights  of  the  House  of 
Commons  and  its  true  position  in  the  Constitution 
were  recognised  in  a  manner  in  which  they  had  never 
been  in  the  former  days  of  the  monarchy.  Attempts 
were  made  to  manage  the  Parliament,  and  also  to 
govern  without  it;  but  when  it  was  suffered  to 
meet,  its  debates  were  nearly  as  free  as  they  are 
at  present,  and  took  as  wide  a  range  as  they  have 
ever  done  since.  The  Commons  for  session  after 
session  during  this  reign  discussed  the  question  of 
excluding  the  heir  presumptive  to  the  throne,  the 
king's  own  brother,  and  even  passed  a  bill  for  that 
purpose.  Would  any  approach  to  such  an  inter- 
ference as  that  have  been  endured  either  by  Eliza- 
beth or  James  I.  ?  .  .  .  and  this  change,  this  gain  had 
been  brought  about  by  the  Long  Parliament  and  the 
great  Rebellion." 

In  the  time  of  Milton  the  pillory  stood  before 
Westminster  Hall,  and  here  he  may  have  seen,  on 
one  of  his  trips  from  Horton  in  1636,  the  stiff-necked 
Prynne  branded  on  either  cheek,  and  exposed  with 
one  ear  cut  off,  according  to  the  barbarous  methods 
of  the  time,  for  writings  which  were  supposed  to 
Jiave  reflected  on  the  queen.  In  those  days  the 


274  /HMlton's 

noble  proportions  of  the  hall  were  partly  masked 
by  neighbouring  shops.  The  architecture  and  the 
long  history  of  this  famous  hall  of  William  Rufus 
are  almost  as  familiar  as  those  of  Westminster 
Abbey,  and  therefore  need  little  comment  here.  The 
story  of  Guy  Fawkes  and  the  sentence  passed  upon 
the  conspirators  here  in  1606  was  one  of  the  first  bits 
of  English  history  that  a  boy  born  but  two  years 
later  would  have  heard.  In  1640,  Charles  I.  and  his 
queen,  concealed  behind  the  tapestry  of  a  dark  cabi- 
net, listened  to  the  trial  of  Stratford,  which  lasted 
eighteen  days.  Nine  years  later  the  king  sat  at  his 
own  trial  beneath  the  banners  of  his  troops,  which 
had  been  taken  at  the  battle  of  Naseby.  When  the 
clerk  read  the  words :  "  Charles  Stuart,  as  a  tyrant, 
traitor,  murderer,"  etc.,  the  king  is  said  to  have 
laughed  in  the  face  of  the  court.  In  Pepys's  diary 
we  get  a  glimpse,  a  few  years  later,  of  the  com- 
mercial uses  to  which  this  stately  edifice  had  been 
degraded,  for  we  find  little  booths  and  stalls  for 
selling  scarfs  and  trifles  were  ranged  along  the  walls 
of  the  interior.  More  than  a  hundred  years  later, 
part  of  the  hall  seems  to  have  been  reserved  for 
stalls,  which  presumably  were  removed  for  coro- 
nation days  and  the  great  functions,  for  which  its 
stately  proportions  are  so  well  fitted.  The  building 
is  one  of  the  most  spacious  edifices  of  stone  whose 


WESTMINSTER    HALL 

rfegun  by  William  Rufus  in  1097.  Here  William  Wallace,  Sir  Thomas  More, 
Sir  Thomas  Wyatt,  Robert  Devereux  (Earl  of  Essex),  Guy  Fawkes,  the  Earl 
of  Strafford,  and  Charles  I.  were  condemned  to  death.  The  chief  access  to  the 
House  of  Commons  in  Milton's  lifetime  was  by  an  archway  on  the  east  side, 
through  which  Charles  I.  passed  to  arrest  the  Five  Members.  Here  Cromwell,' 
in  1653,  wearing  the  royal  purple,  and  holding  a  gold  sceptre  in  one  hand  and  J 
Bible  in  the  other,  was  saluted  as  Lord  Protector. 

From  an  old  engraving. 


.. 


/IDUton's  EnglanO  275 

roof  is  unsupported.    1  .e  roof  of  Irish  oak  is  said 
to  be  always  free  from  spiders  and  insects. 

Close  under  the  shadow  of  the  towering  Abbey 
lies  the  little  church,  St.  Margaret's,  which  must 
have  had  peculiarly  tender  associations  in  Milton's 
mind.  Here  he  buried  his  beloved  second  wife, 
whom,  from  Aldermanbury  church,  he  had  taken  to 
his  home  in  Petty  France,  near  the  Abbey,  for  one 
short  happy  year  of  married  life.  It  is  of  her 
that  he  speaks  in  his  beautiful  sonnet  beginning: 

"  Methought  my  late  espoused  saint, 
Brought  to  me,  like  Alcestis,  from  the  grave." 

The  large  memorial  window  to  Milton  at  the 
west  end  of  the  church  wras  in  recent  years  presented 
by  Mr.  Childs  of  Philadelphia.  This  depicts  numer- 
ous scenes  from  "  Paradise  Lost  "  and  from  Mil- 
ton's life.  He  is  represented  as  a  youth  visiting  the 
aged  Galileo,  and  as  the  old  blind  poet  dictating  his 
immortal  lines  to  his  two  daughters.  The  inscrip- 
tion by  Whittier  expresses  the  thought  and  feeling 
not  only  of  the  New  England  poet,  but  of  every 
American  scholar: 

"  The  New  World  honours  him  whose  lofty  plea 

For  England's  freedom  made  her  own  more  sure, 
Whose  song  immortal  as  his  theme  shall  be 

Their  common  freehold  while  both  worlds  endure." 


276  flbilton's 

Amongst  the  Puritans  who  preached  here  was 
the  famous  Richard  Baxter,  author  of  "  The  Saints' 
Rest,'"'  whose  glum  visage  in  the  National  Gallery 
reveals  little  of  the  true  nobility  of  his  character 
and  of  his  well-ordered  mind.  The  modern  inscrip- 
tion by  Lowell  on  Raleigh's  memorial  here  has  been 
already  mentioned. 

The  church  is  rich  in  monuments  of  figures  clad 
in  the  fashions  of  Milton's  time  and  that  which 
just  preceded  it,  the  architectural  accessories  of 
which  indicate  the  gradual  deterioration  of  Renais- 
sance decoration.  The  rare  old  glass  of  the  chancel 
window  is  referred  to  in  every  guide-book,  and  its 
remarkable  history  need  not  be  here  detailed.  In 
the  reign  of  Charles  I.  fast-day  sermons  were 
preached  here,  and  both  houses  of  Parliament  met 
here  with  the  Assembly  of  Divines,  and  prayed  be- 
fore taking  the  covenant. 


CHAPTER    XVI. 

LAMBETH      PALACE.  —  ST.      SAVIOUR'S. LONDON 

BRIDGE 

IN  Milton's  day,  London  Bridge,  over  the 
narrowest  part  of  the  Thames,  was  the 
only  bridge  that  spanned  the  silent  high- 
way between  the  Tower  and  Lambeth.  The  ven- 
erable pile  of  buildings  which  then,  as  now,  was  the 
chief  point  of  interest  on  the  southern  bank,  was 
usually  reached  by  one  of  the  many  barges  that 
plied  up  and  down  and  across  from  shore  to  shore. 
In  Milton's  boyhood  its  gray  towers  had  already 
marked  for  three  centuries  the  residence  of  the 
Archbishops  of  Canterbury.  It  has  now  been  the 
home  of  more  than  fifty  primates.  The  student 
of  English  history  will  find  no  building,  with  the 
exception  of  the  Tower  and  the  Abbey,  which  brings 
him  so  closely  into  connection  with  the  whole  his- 
tory of  England  as  does  Lambeth  Palace.  It  lies 
low  upon  the  site  of  an  ancient  marsh  overflowed  by 
the  Thames  at  this,  its  greatest  width,  this  side  of 
London  Bridge.  As  late  as  Milton's  boyhood  the 

shore  between  Lambeth  Church  and  Black  friars  was 

277 


278  flDUton's  Bnglanb 

a  haunt  of  wild  fowl  and  a  royal  hunting-ground. 
A  grove  stood  then  on  the  site  of  the  long  line  of 
St.  Thomas's  Hospital.  Lambeth  Bridge,  so  called, 
was  at  that  time  simply  a  landing-place.  As  every 
schoolboy  remembers,  it  was  here  that  on  a  December 
night  in  1688,  Mary  of  Modena,  the  fair  queen  of 
James  II.,  alighted  on  her  flight  from  Whitehall, 
disguised  as  a  washerwoman;  under  the  shelter  of 
the  tower  of  Lambeth  she  cowered,  awaiting  the 
coach  that  was  to  rescue  her,  while  in  an  agony  of 
fear  she  embraced  the  parcel  of  linen  which  held 
concealed  the  infant  who  was  to  be  known  in  his- 
tory as  the  "  Pretender." 

The  visitor  to  Lambeth  will  find  it  worth  his 
while  to  pause  a  few  minutes  before  presenting  his 
letter  of  permission  to  enter  the  palace,  and  spend 
the  brief  time  in  Lambeth  Church,  if  only  to  see 
the  quaint  old  window  of  the  peddler  and  his  dog, 
a  memorial  of  the  peddler  who  centuries  since  gave 
an  almost  worthless  acre  of  land  to  Lambeth,  from 
which  it  has  since  drawn  large  revenues.  There 
is  a  peal  of  eight  bells  in  the  old  gray  tower  —  the 
music  of  the  bells  was  one  that  our  forefathers  loved 
apparently  more  than  other  folk.  "  The  English  are 
vastly  fond  of  great  noises  that  fill  the  air,"  wrote 
Hentzner  shortly  before  Milton's  birth,  "  such  as 
firing  of  cannon,  beating  of  drums,  and  ringing  of 


flMlton's  England  279 

bells.  It  is  common  that  a  number  of  them  who 
have  got  a  glass  in  their  heads  do  get  up  into  some 
belfry,  and  ring  bells  for  hours  together,  for  the 
sake  of  exercise.  Hence  this  country  has  been  called 
'  the  ringing  island.' ' 

In  Milton's  time  the  buildings  of  Lambeth  were 
less  extensive  than  they  are  to-day.  Its  beautiful, 
lofty  gateway  known  as  "  Morton's,"  which  was 
built  in  1490,  is  of  red  brick  with  stone  trimmings, 
and  has  an  arched  doorway  under  a  large  window 
in  the  middle  portion.  It  is  perhaps  the  largest 
and  best  specimen  of  the  early  Tudor  work  that  now 
remains  in  England.  It  is  flanked  by  two  massive 
square  towers  five  stories  high.  At  this  gate,  from 
earliest  times  until  recently,  a  dole  of  money,  bread, 
and  provisions  was  weekly  given  to  thirty  poor 
parishioners  of  Lambeth.  In  earlier  times  the  hos- 
pitality that  was  offered  was  excessive  and  encour- 
aged beggary.  Stow  tells  us  of  the  gifts  of  farthing 
loaves  which  amounted  to  the  sum  of  £500  a  year. 
At  present  the  doles  amount  to  about  £200  a  year 
and  are  given  only  to  well-known  persons.  In  addi- 
tion to  these  doles,  huge  baskets  of  fragments  from 
the  three  tables  in  the  long  dining-halls  sufficed,  as 
Strype  tells  us,  "  to  fill  the  bellies  of  a  great  number 
of  hungry  people  that  waited  at  the  gate."  Some 
conception  of  the  size  of  Cranmer's  establishment 


280  rtMlton'8 

may  be  gathered  from  the  authentic  list  of  his  house- 
hold :  "  Steward,  treasurer,  comptroller,  gamators, 
clerk  of  the  kitchen,  caterer,  clerk  of  the  spicery, 
bakers,  pantlers,  yeomen  of  the  horse,  ushers, 
butlers  of  wine  and  ale,  larderers,  squilleries,  ushers 
of  the  hall,  porter,  ushers  of  the  chamber,  daily 
waiters  in  the  great  chamber,  gentlemen  ushers, 
yeomen  of  the  chamber,  carver,  sewer,  cupbearer, 
grooms  of  the  chamber,  marshal  groom  ushers, 
almoner,  cooks,  chandler,  butchers,  master  of  the 
horse,  yeomen  of  the  wardrobe,  and  harbingers." 
Over  such  a  rich  and  splendid  household  did  the 
Establishment  place  the  man  above  all  others  who 
was  to  be  to  England  its  highest  embodiment  of 
the  spirit  of  the  young  Carpenter  of  Nazareth. 
To-day  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  is  given  two 
residences,  and  a  salary  of  £15,000,  that  he  may  keep 
up  these  establishments;  that  of  the  average  curate 
is  about  £100. 

The  great  hall,  which  to-day  contains  the  library, 
is  on  the  site  of  that  of  Boniface,  who  built  the  first 
in  the  thirteenth  century.  Archbishop  Juxon,  who 
attended  Charles  I.  upon  the  scaffold,  rebuilt  the 
present  edifice  after  the  original  model,  which  had 
been  destroyed  during  the  Commonwealth.  One 
of  the  great  treasures  of  this  library  is  Caxton's 
"  Chronicles  of  Great  Britain,"  which  was  printed 


rtMlton's  England  281 

in  1480  at  Westminster.  The  Mazarin  Bible,  the 
Life  of  Laud,  with  the  autograph  of  Charles  I.,  and 
many  books  and  manuscripts  of  great  rarity  and 
value  are  also  preserved  here.  The  library  is  open 
to  the  public  under  proper  regulations  on  five  days 
in  the  week.  Among  the  names  of  eminent  men 
who  have  served  as  librarians  over  this  small  but 
precious  library,  none  interests  us  more  than  that 
of  John  Richard  Green,  the  historian  of  the  English 
people. 

The  chapel,  built  in  the  last  half  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  is  the  oldest  part  that  remains.  An  open- 
ing into  Cranmer's  ancient  "  parloir  "  is  now  the 
organ-loft.  From  the  chancel  one  has  a  glimpse 
of  the  original  beautiful  ceiling.  The  wall  pillars 
of  Purbeck  marble  in  the  atrium  are  said  to  be  one 
thousand  years  old.  In  this  chapel  two  of  the  first 
American  bishops  were  consecrated.  The  oak  screen 
was  erected  by  Archbishop  Laud.  This  chapel  con- 
tained the  windows  that  were  destroyed  in  the  Civil 
Wars,  which  served  as  such  a  theme  of  controversy 
in  Laud's  trial.  He  testified  as  follows :  "  The  first 
thing  the  Commons  have  in  their  evidence  against 
me,  is  the  setting  up  and  repairing  Popish  images 
and  pictures  in  the  glass  windows  of  my  chapel  at 
Lambeth,  and  amongst  others  the  picture  of  Christ 
hanging  on  the  cross  between  two  thieves  in  the 


282  rtMlton's  England 

east  window;  of  God  the  Father  in  the  form  of  a 
little  old  man  with  a  glory,  striking  Miriam  with  a 
leprosy;  of  the  Holy  Ghost  descending  in  the 
form  of  a  dove;  and  of  Christ's  Nativity,  Last 
Supper,  Resurrection,  Ascension,  and  others.  .  .  . 
To  which  I  answer  first,  That  I  did  not  set  these 
images  up,  but  found  them  there  before;  Secondly, 
that  I  did  only  repair  the  windows  which  were  so 
broken,  and  the  chapel,  which  lay  so  nastily  before 
that  I  was  ashamed  to  behold,  and  could  not  resort 
to  it  but  with  some  disdain,  which  caused  me  to 
repair  it  to  my  great  cost ;  Thirdly,  that  I  made  up 
the  history  of  these  old  broken  pictures,  not  by  any 
pattern  in  the  mass  book,  but  only  by  help  of  the 
fragments  and  remainders  of  them  which  I  com- 
pared with  the  story."  It  is  related  that  at  a  dinner 
of  the  domestics  during  Laud's  primacy,  the  king's 
jester  pronounced  the  grace,  "  Give  great  praise 
to  God,  but  little  Laud  to  the  devil,"  for  which  jest 
he  paid  by  long  imprisonment. 

In  the  so-called  "  Lollards'  Tower  "  at  the  west 
end  of  the  chapel,  the  only  part  of  the  existing 
palace  that  is  built  of  stone,  is  a  niche  in  which 
was  placed  the  image  of  St.  Thomas  a  Becket,  to 
which  Dean  Stanley  tells  us  "  the  watermen  of  the 
Thames  doffed  their  caps  as  they  rode  in  their 
countless  barges." 


THE    LOLLARDS'    TOWER,    LAMBETH    PALACE 

Front  an  old  engraving. 


/IMlton's  England  283 

The  small  room  at  the  top  of  the  tower  is  wain- 
scoted with  oak  over  an  inch  thick,  upon  which 
prisoners  chained  to  its  iron  rings  have  carved 
words  in  early  English  and  Latin.  Through  the 
oubliette  in  the  floor  dead  prisoners  were  doubtless 
dropped  into  the  Thames,  which  in  former  days 
washed  the  very  walls  of  Lambeth,  and  swept  under 
this  tower.  Whether  any  Lollards  were  ever  lodged 
here  is  very  doubtful,  although  it  is  true  that  Wyclif, 
the  arch-Lollard,  was  at  one  time  examined  for 
his  opinions,  by  the  bishops  at  Lambeth.  The 
real  Lollards'  Tower  seems  to  have  been  an  adjunct 
of  old  St.  Paul's  Cathedral.  More  probably  the 
prisoners  here  were  Episcopalians  of  Milton's  own 
time. 

In  the  dark  crypt,  the  wretched  queen,  Anne 
Boleyn,  heard  from  the  lips  of  Cranmer  the  annul- 
ment of  her  marriage  with  Henry,  and  was  forced 
to  affirm  the  disinheritance  of  her  offspring.  From 
thence  she  went  to  the  Tower  and  her  doom.  In 
this  same  palace,  where  she  lay  a  prisoner  in  1533, 
her  predecessor,  Katharine  of  Aragon,  was  a  guest 
on  her  arrival  in  England  in  1501.  Milton  must 
doubtless  sometime  have  visited  this  princely  resi- 
dence, and  have  mused  upon  the  martyred  Cranmer 
and  Latimer  and  Sir  Thomas  More,  and  the  long 
list  of  kings  and  queens  and  men,  who,  as  masters. 


284  /HMlton's 

guests,  or  prisoners,  have  slept  within  these  walls. 
Of  all  the  noted  men  who  were  connected  with 
Lambeth  in  his  day,  none,  of  course,  so  stirred  his 
spirit  as  did  Archbishop  Laud,  who  lived  here,  and 
exercised  his  power  in  the  Star  Chamber,  during 
the  years  when  Parliament  was  silenced.  From 
1633  until  his  committal  to  the  Tower  on  the  charge 
of  treason  in  1641  after  the  assembling  of  the  Long 
Parliament,  he  was  master  here.  It  was  while  here 
at  Lambeth  that  he  supervised  the  compilation  of 
the  Service  Book;  when  this  was  enforced  in  1637 
upon  the  Scottish  churches,  it  was  so  repugnant  to 
them  that  the  riot  begun  in  Edinburgh,  by  Jenny 
Geddes  flinging  her  stool  in  St.  Giles's  Cathedral 
at  the  bishop's  head,  initiated  a  national  revolt, 
which  led  to  the  signing  of  the  famous  Scottish 
National  Covenant.  Milton  at  this  time,  at  the 
age  of  thirty,  was  living  at  Horton.  Little  by  little 
the  resolute  archbishop  came  to  be  looked  upon  by 
men  of  Milton's  way  of  thinking  as  one  whose  sys- 
tem demanded  submission  to  absolutism  in  the  state. 
The  student  of  Milton's  prose  writings  is  familiar 
with  the  troublous  history  of  Laud's  time,  and  the 
ludicrously  trivial  matters  that  then  estranged  ear- 
nest men.  But,  while  the  ceremonies  permitted  in 
the  church  two  generations  later  were  practically 
those  that  Laud  had  so  zealously  striven  for,  the 


rtMlton's  En0lan&  285 

result,  says  Gardiner,  "  was  only  finally  attained  by 
a  total  abandonment  of  all  Laud's  methods.  What 
had  been  impossible  to  effect  in  a  church  to  the 
worship  of  which  every  person  in  the  land  was 
obliged  to  conform,  became  possible  in  a  church 
which  any  one  who  pleased  was  at  liberty  to 
abandon."  After  Laud's  execution  the  see  of 
Canterbury  was  vacant  nearly  seventeen  years. 
Among  the  many  portraits  of  the  archbishops  which 
hang  at  Lambeth,  the  portrait  of  Laud  by  Van  Dyck 
is  one  of  the  most  admirable.  We  read  that  his  suc- 
cessor, Sheldon,  in  1665,  in  the  time  of  the  Great 
Plague,  "  continued  in  his  palace  at  Lambeth  whilst 
the  contagion  lasted,  preserving  by  his  charities 
multitudes  who  were  sinking  under  disease  and 
want,  and  by  his  pastoral  exertions  procured  benevo- 
lences to  a  vast  amount."  Admission  to  Lambeth 
must  be  obtained  by  written  request,  but  is  by  no 
means  difficult,  yet  no  important  spot  in  London  is 
so  rarely  visited  by  the  general  public.  The  enthu- 
siasm and  intelligence  of  the  resident  guide,  who 
has  several  times  in  the  last  ten  years  conducted 
the  writer  through  its  historic  precincts,  makes  an 
hour  at  Lambeth  a  memorable  lesson  in  English 
history.  His  huge  gray  cat,  whose  name,  "  Massa- 
chusetts," in  other  years  brought  a  smile  to  the 
lips  of  every  American  who  chanced  to  learn  it,  no 


286  /iDUton's  England 

longer  purrs  a  welcome  to  the  dim  corridors  and 
towers  of  the  old  palace,  but  has  gone  the  way  of 
all  his  short-lived  contemporaries.  Let  us  hope  that 
his  master  may  for  many  years  to  come  live  to 
tell  the  long,  romantic  tale  of  these  old  walls  to  all 
of  England's  kin  beyond  the  sea  who  journey  hither 
to  study  with  reverent  eyes  the  history  of  the  land 
from  which  they  came. 

Among  places  of  minor  interest  in  Southwark, 
which  doubtless  Milton  well  knew,  was  the  "  Tabard 
Inn,"  the  starting-point  of  Chaucer's  Canterbury 
Pilgrims.  This  stood  on  High  Street,  and  was  not 
demolished  until  1875.  In  Milton's  time  it  was 
inscribed :  "  This  is  the  Inne  where  Sir  Jeffrey 
Chaucer  and  the  nine  and  twenty  pilgrims  lay  in 
their  journey  to  Canterbury  anno  1380."  It  had 
then  a  more  modern  facade  than  Chaucer  saw.  The 
Globe  Theatre  of  Shakespearian  fame  was  then  on 
the  site  of  the  present  brewery  of  Barclay,  Perkins, 
&  Co.  The  visitor  to  the  region  just  south  of 
London  Bridge  who  would  see  a  bit  of  quaint 
domestic  architecture  that  recalls  the  past,  would 
do  well  to  seek  out,  amid  the  noisy,  hideous  streets, 
a  tiny  green  oasis,  bordered  by  what  is  known  as  the 
Red  Cross  Hall  and  cottages.  Thanks  to  Miss 
Octavia  Hill  and  her  friends,  the  little  Gothic  hall, 
with  its  frescoes  of  civic  heroes,  designed  by  Walter 


GOWER'S    MONUMENT    IN    ST.    SAVIOUR'S    CHURCH, 
SOUTHWARK 


flDUton's  England  287 

Crane,  and  its  little  row  of  picturesque  gabled 
houses,  stand  here  as  a  rest  and  solace  to  weary  eyes 
and  hearts  that  hunger  amid  ugliness  for  beauty. 
Just  such  houses  Milton  saw  at  every  turn  in  the 
beautiful  old  London  that  he  knew. 

No  church  in  Southwark  and  only  two  or  three 
in  London  are  of  so  great  interest  to  the  antiquarian 
as  St.  Saviour's  or  St.  Mary  Overy's,  whose  curious 
name  is  explained  in  every  guide-book.  It  has  a 
record  of  more  than  a  thousand  years.  Chaucer, 
Cruden,  the  author  of  the  "  Concordance,"  Doctor 
Samuel  Johnson,  Oliver  Goldsmith,  Baxter,  and 
Bunyan  were  closely  connected  with  this  church  and 
parish.  In  one  of  its  chapels,  in  the  generation  pre- 
ceding Milton,  beneath  its  three-light  window,  the 
Bishops  of  Winchester  and  London,  and  others  act- 
ing for  the  see  of  Rome,  tried  and  condemned  to 
death  by  the  flames  seven  ministers  of  Christ.  Their 
only  crime  was  opposition  to  the  "  usurpations  of  the 
Papal  Schism."  Among  these  were  the  rector  of 
the  church  in  which  a  half  century  later  Milton  was 
baptised.  Bishop  Hooper,  who  was  burned  at 
Gloucester,  and  John  Rogers,  the  famous  martyr  of 
Smithfield.  Another  heretic,  more  fortunate  than 
these  seven,  had  just  previously  been  condemned  to 
the  stake  and  pardoned  for  the  sake  of  his  musical 
talents.  In  this  stately  edifice,  which  has  recently 


288  flDilton's  Englanfc 

been  admirably  restored,  lies  the  dust  of  many  dear 
to  lovers  of  poetry.  Chaucer's  fellow  poet,  friend, 
and  teacher,  John  Gower,  lies  under  a  lofty  Gothic 
canopy;  his  sculptured  head  rests  on  three  large 
volumes,  which  represent  his  works.  Milton's  con- 
temporaries, Massinger  and  Fletcher,  lie  buried  in 
the  same  grave.  The  latter  died  of  the  plague  when 
Milton  was  at  Cambridge.  His  well-known  poem 
on  "  Melancholy,"  beginning : 

"  Hence,  all  you  vain  delights, 
As  short  as  are  the  nights 

Wherein  you  spend  your  folly ! " 

was  probably  familiar  to  the  young  poet  at  Horton, 
when  he  penned  his  "  II  Penseroso,"  although 
Fletcher's  poem  was  not  published  until  after  that. 
Both  Massinger  and  Fletcher  are  commemorated 
by  modern  windows.  The  latter's  colleague,  Francis 
Beaumont,  whose  writings  are  so  indissolubly  con- 
nected with  his,  is  honoured  with  a  window  in  which 
the  friendship  of  the  two  is  typified  by  the  figures 
of  David  and  Jonathan. 

The  year  before  Milton's  birth,  the  author  of 
"  Hamlet  "  and  "  Lear  "  doubtless  stood  within  the 
choir  of  this  church  beside  the  grave  of  his  young 
brother  Edmond,  an  actor,  who  died  at  the  age  of 
twenty-seven,  when  his  great  elder  brother's  genius 


AUton's  Enalanfc  289 


had  nearly  touched  its  zenith  of  creative  power. 
The  parish  boasts  that  some  of  the  most  magnifi- 
cent masterpieces  of  the  world's  literature  were 
written  within  its  borders  by  this,  its  most  distin- 
guished parishioner,  and  England's  greatest  son.  In 
his  youth  Milton  may  well  have  attended  the 
funeral  of  the  great  Bishop  Andrewes,  whose  recum- 
bent effigy  is  on  one  of  the  tombs  that  scholars  will 
seek  out.  This  man,  who  knew  fifteen  languages, 
was  president  of  the  little  company  of  ten  who  gave 
the  world  a  large  part  of  the  King  James  version 
of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  whose  perfection  of  liter- 
ary form  has  never  been  equalled.  In  the  Lady- 
Chapel  may  still  be  seen  inscribed  upon  the  windows 
the  virulent  words  which  would  not  have  as  greatly 
offended  Milton's  taste  as  that  of  the  present  parish- 
ioners :  "  Your  sacrament  of  the  Mass  is  no  sacra- 
ment at  all,  neither  is  Christ  present  in  it  ;  "  "  From 
the  Bishop  of  Rome  and  all  his  detestable  enormities, 
good  Lord  deliver  us." 

The  London  Bridge  of  Milton's  day  was  one  of 
England's  marvels.  Standing  on  the  site  of  two 
or  three  predecessors,  it  stood  60  feet  above  high 
water  and  stretched  926  feet  in  length.  It  contained 
a  drawbridge,  and  nineteen  pointed  arches,  with  mas- 
sive piers.  Much  of  its  picturesqueness  must  have 
resulted  from  the  irregularity  of  the  breadth  of  its 


flMlton'8 

arches.  The  skilful  chaplain  who  built  it  doubtless 
planned  his  spans  according  to  the  varying  depth 
and  strength  of  current  of  the  tide,  and  would  have 
scorned  the  modern  mechanical  habit  of  disregarding 
conditions  in  order  to  attain  exact  uniformity ;  thus 
his  arches  varied  in  breadth  from  ten  to  thirty-two 
feet.  Over  the  tenth  and  longest  was  built  a  little 
Gothic  chapel  dedicated  to  the  then  new  saint, 
Thomas  of  Canterbury.  In  Milton's  lifetime,  rows 
of  houses  were  added  to  the  chapel  and  stretched 
across  toward  the  Southwark  side. 

Between  the  chapel  and  the  southern  end  of  the 
bridge  was  a  drawbridge,  and  at  the  north  end 
of  this  was  a  remarkable  edifice  of  wood  in  Milton's 
boyhood.  This  was  called  "  Nonsuch  House."  It 
was  said  to  have  been  built  in  Holland  and  brought 
over  in  pieces  and  put  together  by  wooden  pegs.  It 
stretched  across  the  bridge  upon  an  archway,  and 
was  a  curious,  fantastic  structure,  carved  elaborately 
on  three  sides.  The  towers  on  its  four  corners  bore 
high  aloft  above  the  neighbouring  buildings  low 
domes  and  gilded  vanes.  It  stood  upon  the  site  of 
the  old  tower  whereon  the  heads  of  criminals  had 
been  exposed;  when  it  was  taken  down,  the  heads 
were  removed  to  the  tower  over  the  gate  upon  the 
Southwark  side.  This  had  four  circular  turrets,  and 
was  a  notable  and  imposing  entrance  to  the  bridge. 


dDilton's  England  291 

At  the  north  end  of  the  bridge  was  an  ingenious 
engine  for  raising  water  for  the  supply  of  the  city. 
It  was  originally  worked  only  by  the  tide  flowing 
through  the  first  arch ;  but  for  this  work  several  of 
the  water  courses  were  later  converted  into  water- 
falls or  rapids,  and  thereby  greatly  inconvenienced 
navigation.  An  extension  of  this  simple,  early 
mechanism  lasted  as  late  as  1822. 

This  bridge,  which  was  to  last  six  hundred 
f.nd  thirty  years,  was  as  long  in  building  as  King 
Solomon's  Temple,  and,  at  the  time,  probably  sur- 
passed in  strength  and  size  any  bridge  in  the  whole 
world. 

London  Bridge  is  famous  the  world  over  in  the 
nurseries  of  every  English-speaking  child.  Milton 
himself,  as  the  fair-haired  little  darling  in  the  scriv- 
ener's house  on  Bread  Street,  probably  danced  and 
sang  the  ancient  ditty,  as  thousands  had  done  before 
him: 

"  London  bridge  is  broken  down, 

Dance  over,  my  Lady  Lee ; 
London  bridge  is  broken  down, 
With  a  gay  ladee. 

"  How  shall  we  build  it  up  again  ? 

Dance  over,  my  Lady  Lee ; 
How  shall  we  build  it  up  again  ? 
With  a  gay  ladee. 


29*  /IMlton's  England 

"  Build  it  up  with  stone  so  strong, 

Dance  over,  my  Lady  Lee ; 
Huzza,  'twill  last  for  ages  long, 
With  a  gay  ladee." 

For  centuries  before  Milton  was  born,  Billings- 
gate, a  little  to  the  east  of  London  Bridge,  had  been 
one  of  the  city's  water-gates,  and  long  before  his 
time  its  neighbourhood  was  rilled  with  stalls  for  the 
sale  of  fish,  a  far  more  necessary  commodity  in  days 
when  no  fresh  meat  was  to  be  bought  in  winter. 
When  Stow  was  preparing  his  "  Survey,"  Billings- 
gate was  "  a  large  water-gate,  port,  or  harbour  for 
ships  and  boats  commonly  arriving  there  with  fish, 
both  fresh  and  salt,  shellfish,  salt,  oranges,  onions, 
and  other  fruits  and  roots,  wheat,  rye,  and  grains 
of  divers  sorts." 


CHAPTER    XVII. 

THE     PLAGUE.  —  THE     FIRE.  —  WREN.  —  LONDON 
REBUILT 

[N  the  summer  of  1665,  the  Great  Plague 
appeared  in  the  midst  of  the  alarm  over 
the  Dutch  invasion.  The  three  earlier 
visitations  of  the  terrible  disease  during  Milton's 
youth  were  to  be  eclipsed  in  horror  by  this,  the 
last  great  one  that  England  was  to  know.  Little 
connection  between  dirt  and  disease  existed  in  the 
minds  of  even  scientific  men.  Dirt  was  condemned 
as  unaesthetic;  but  that  earth  floors  covered  with 
rushes,  mixed  with  greasy  bones  and  decaying  cab- 
bage leaves,  had  any  connection  with  the  griping 
pain  of  the  groaning  child  upon  the  cot,  its  father 
did  not  dream.  Some  water  was  brought  in  pipes 
from  Tyburn,  but  much  of  it  was  taken  from  the 
polluted  Thames  near  London  Bridge  and  carried 
about  the  streets  in  water-carts.  How  much  was 
taken  for  bathing  purposes  may  be  imagined.  When 
a  luxurious  monarch  like  Louis  XIV.  found  a  bath 
no  necessity,  we  need  not  wonder  that  the  English 

293 


294  flMlton's  England 

cartman,  and  blacksmith,  and  craftsman,  housed  in 
his  narrow  tenements  near  Smithfield  or  in  South- 
wark,  considered  it  a  superfluity. 

The  summer  of  1665  was  hot  and  oppressive.  All 
through  the  pitiless  heat  the  wretched  inmates  of  the 
town,  whence  two  hundred  thousand  of  the  fortu- 
nate ones  like  Milton  had  fled,  walked  around  the 
gloomy  and  deserted  streets  gathering  their  dead. 
By  September  fifteen  hundred  were  dying  every  day. 
The  heat  was  aggravated  b\  the  bonfires  which  were 
kept  burning  in  vain  hope  of  purifying  the  atmos- 
phere. Physicians,  ignorant,  but  heroic,  remained  at 
their  posts,  cupping  and  blistering,  and  uselessly 
tormenting  the  helpless  folk  who  with  pathetic  con- 
fidence looked  to  them  for  salvation.  Some  men 
became  insane,  and  some  died  of  sheer  fright.  The 
suddenness  of  the  death  was  one  of  the  most 
ghastly  features  of  the  scourge.  The  mother  who 
nursed  her  child  at  morning  handed  its  little  corpse 
at  night  to  the  man  with  the  bell  and  dreadful  cart, 
and  knew  not  where  its  tender  limbs  were  rudely 
thrust  with  the  haste  of  a  great  terror  which  pos- 
sessed the  wretched  gravediggers. 

Out  of  a  population  of  less  than  seven  hundred 
thousand,  probably  one  hundred  thousand  perished, 
and  starvation  and  poverty  stared  many  others  in 
the  face. 


I  » 

•£>      ? 


o   « 

II 


flDtlton's  Bnglanfc  295 

Something  must  have  been  learned  of  the  need 
of  purer  water,  for  we  find  London,  after  the  fire 
next  year,  bestirring  itself  to  get  a  general  supply 
of  water  from  a  canal  forty  miles  long,  called  "  New 
River,"  which  conducted  a  supply  from  Chadswell 
Springs  in  Hertfordshire  to  a  reservoir  at  Islington. 

The  summer  of  1666  was  likewise  hot  and  dry, 
and  a  furious  gale  blew  for  weeks  together.  Condi- 
tions were  the  same  as  in  Chicago  before  the  con- 
flagration that  in  November,  1871,  swept  over  1,687 
acres,  which  covered  a  territory  four  miles  long 
and  nearly  three  miles  wide,  and  entailed  a  loss  of 
$300,000,000,  though  half  of  the  buildings  were 
of  wood.  The  moment  was  as  propitious  for  the 
fire  fiend  as  when  Mother  O'Leary's  cow  kicked  over 
the  lamp  in  the  Windy  City  of  the  West.  A  baker's 
oven  took  fire  in  Pudding  Lane,  two  hundred  and 
two  feet  from  the  site  of  the  present  Fire  Monu- 
ment, which  Wren  erected  in  memory  of  it  that 
number  of  feet  in  height.  The  fire  began  on  Sunday 
night.  It  was  twenty-four  hours  before  the  dazed 
citizens  attempted  organised  relief,  but  then  it  was 
too  late.  By  Tuesday  evening  the  flames  had  licked 
up  everything  as  far  west  as  the  Temple.  The 
resolute  king  came  to  the  help  of  the  inefficient 
mayor,  and  ordered  gunpowder  to  be  used  to  blow 
up  buildings  and  thus  create  open  spaces  where  the 


296  flMlton's  England 

fire  would  lack  food.  By  Thursday  evening  the  fire 
had  practically  ceased,  and  the  citizens  who  had 
looked  on  at  the  destruction  of  their  homes  and 
churches  and  shops  and  the  inestimable  treasures  of 
the  past,  sought  shelter  for  their  weary  limbs.  No 
telegraphic  messages  of  sympathy,  no  carloads  of 
provisions  from  neighbouring  cities  poured  in  to 
their  relief,  and  homeless  children  cried  for  bread. 

Evelyn,  in  describing  the  conflagration,  says : 
"  All  the  skie  was  of  a  fiery  aspect  like  that  of  a 
burning  oven,  and  the  light  seen  above  forty  miles 
round  about  for  many  nights.  God  grant  mine  eyes 
may  never  behold  the  sight  —  who  now  saw  ten 
thousand  houses  all  in  one  flame;  the  noise  and 
crackling  and  thunder  of  the  impetuous  flames;  the 
shrieking  of  women  and  children;  the  hurry  of 
people,  the  fall  of  towers,  houses,  and  churches  was 
like  an  hideous  storme  and  the  aire  all  about  so  hot 
and  inflamed  that  at  last  one  was  not  able  to  ap- 
proach it.  The  clouds  also  and  smoke  were  dismall 
and  reached  upon  computation  neere  56  miles  in 
length.  The  poore  inhabitants  were  dispers'd  about 
St.  George's  Fields  and  Moorefields,  as  far  as  High- 
gate,  and  several  miles  in  circle,  some  under  tents, 
some  under  miserable  hutts  and  hovells,  many  with- 
out a  rag  or  any  necessary  utensils,  bed  or  board, 
who  from  delicatenesse,  riches,  and  easy  accommo- 


flDUton's  Englanfc  297 

dations  in  stately  and  well-furnished  houses,  were 
now  reduc'd  to  extremest  misery  and  poverty." 

Pepys  tells  us  that  the  entire  lead  roof  of  St. 
Paul's  Cathedral,  no  less  than  six  acres  by  measure, 
"  fell  in,  the  melted  lead  running  down  into  the 
streets  and  into  the  crypt  where  books  had  been 
carried  for  safety."  He  notes  that  the  fire  burned 
just  as  many  parish  churches  as  there  were  hours 
from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  the  fire. 

Dryden,  in  the  long  section  of  his  "  Annus 
Mirabilis  "  which  describes  the  "  Great  Fire,"  has  a 
few  lines  among  his  prosaic  stanzas  which  bear 
quotation : 

"  The  ghosts  of  traitors  from  the  bridge  descend, 

With  bold  fanatic  spectres  to  rejoice : 
About  the  fire  into  a  dance  they  bend, 

And  sing  their  sabbath  notes  with  feeble  voice. 


"  A  key  of  fire  ran  all  along  the  shore, 

And  lightened  all  the  river  with  a  blaze : 
The  wakened  tides  began  again  to  roar, 
And  wondering  fish  in  shining  waters  gaze. 


"  The  rich  grow  suppliant,  and  the  poor  grow  proud : 

Those  offer  mighty  gain,  and  these  ask  more : 
So  void  of  pity  is  the  ignoble  crowd, 

When  others'  ruin  may  increase  their  store. 


298  ADUton's  England 

"  The  most  in  fields  like  herded  beasts  lie  down, 

To  dews  obnoxious  on  the  grassy  floor ; 
And  while  their  babes  in  sleep  their  sorrows  drown, 
Sad  parents  watch  the  remnants  of  their  store." 

The  king,  who  for  the  time  being  had  behaved  in 
manly  fashion,  went  back  to  his  dalliance  with 
courtesans  and  "  the  burning  lusts,  dissolute  court, 
profane  and  abominable  lives "  of  which  Evelyn 
writes  on  the  day  of  fast  and  humiliation  ordered  for 
the  occasion. 

Though  there  was  not  a  particle  of  proof  that 
the  Catholics  had  anything  whatever  to  do  with  the 
origin  of  the  fire,  the  frenzy  and  prejudice  of  the 
populace  attributed  it  to  them,  and  an  inscription 
to  that  effect,  which  later  was  erased,  was  placed 
upon  the  monument. 

The  fire  destroyed  eighty-eight  churches  besides 
St.  Paul's,  together  with  the  city  gates,  the  Ex- 
change, the  Custom  House,  13,200  dwelling-houses, 
and  four  hundred  streets.  A  space  of  436  acres, 
two-thirds  of  the  entire  city,  was  consumed;  and 
property  then  valued  at  £7,335,000  was  destroyed. 
For  six  months  London  remained  a  chaos  of  rubbish 
heaps.  Pepys  writes  that  in  March  he  still  saw 
smoke  rising  from  the  ruins.  The  eight  churches  in 
the  city  proper  that  still  remain  practically  as  Milton 
saw  them  have  been  described  in  detail.  They  are 


flMlton'0  England  299 

All  Hallows  Barking,  St.  Ethelburga's,  St.  An- 
drew Undershaft,  of  Saxon  foundation ;  St.  Olave's, 
of  Danish;  and  St.  Helen's,  of  Norman  foundation; 
St.  Catherine  Cree.  Austin  Friars,  which  was  the 
Dutch  church,  and  St.  Giles's,  Cripplegate,  just  beside 
the  city  wall.  Of  the  six  others  that  were  not 
destroyed,  All  Hallows  by  the  wall  (Broad  Street 
Ward)  and  St.  Katherine  Coleman  (Aldgate)  were 
rebuilt  later.  The  four  that  then  remained  but  have 
since  disappeared  were  St.  Christopher  le  Stocks, 
and  St.  Martin  Outwich  (Broad  Street  Ward),  All- 
Hallows,  Staining  (Tower  Ward),  and  St.  Alphage, 
Aldermanbury. 

Forty  churches  were  rebuilt  after  the  fire,  and 
these  were  all  designed  by  Sir  Christopher  Wren, 
who  when  he  began  his  gigantic  task  was  a  young 
man  of  thirty-five.  Wren,  who  was  a  nephew  of 
the  Bishop  of  Ely,  was  trained  under  Doctor  Busby 
in  Westminster  School,  and  then  at  Wadham  Col- 
lege, Oxford,  and  was  there  noted  by  John  Evelyn 
as  a  "  miracle  of  a  youth,"  "  a  prodigious  young 
scholar,"  who  showed  him  "  a  thermometer,  a  mon- 
strous magnet,  and  some  dials." 

Wren  was  a  little  later  one  of  the  chief  founders 
of  the  Royal  Society,  and  its  first  meetings  were 
held  in  his  rooms.  As  versatile  and  original  as 
Da  Vinci,  he  excelled  in  Latin,  mathematics,  and 


300  /Dillon's  England 

astronomy,  and  was  a  close  student  of  anatomy,  and 
other  sciences  as  well.  Ten  years  before  the  Great 
Fire  he  was  professor  of  astronomy  in  Gresham 
College,  London,  and  at  the  age  of  twenty-eight,  he 
was  elected  to  the  professorship  of  astronomy  in 
Oxford.  Before  he  was  thirty  and  had  done  any 
work  in  architecture,  Isaac  Barrow  declared  him 
to  be  "  something  superhuman."  About  this  time 
he  invented  an  agricultural  implement  for  planting, 
and  a  method  of  making  fresh  water  at  sea.  A 
year  before  the  Fire  he  solved  a  knotty  problem  in 
geometry  which  Pascal  had  sent  to  English  mathe- 
maticians. Says  Hooke,  "  I  must  affirm  that  since 
the  time  of  Archimedes  there  scarce  ever  met  in 
one  man  in  so  great  a  perfection  such  a  mechanical 
hand  and  so  philosophic  a  mind."  Had  Wren  never 
designed  a  building  he  would  have  been  famous  for 
his  achievements  in  the  study  of  the  cycloid,  in 
rendering  practical  the  use  of  the  barometer,  in 
inventing  a  method  for  the  transference  of  one 
animal's  blood  to  another,  in  methods  for  noting 
longitude  at  sea,  and  for  other  studies  and  inventions 
too  numerous  to  mention. 

Wren  was  a  self-taught  architect.  Before  the 
Fire  he  erected  Pembroke  College  Chapel  at  Cam- 
bridge, and  the  Sheldonian  Theatre  at  Oxford.  He 
then  visited  Paris,  where  he  saw  Bernini,  and  made 


flDUton's  Englanfc  301 

the  most  of  observations  of  the  Louvre  and  such 
Renaissance  work  as  Paris  then  afforded.  His 
bent  of  mind  was  wholly  divergent  from  the  Gothic, 
and  as  it  proved,  in  the  few  instances  in  which 
he  introduced  its  features  into  his  Renaissance 
churches,  the  result  was  as  incongruous  as  Chaucer's 
cap  and  gown  upon  a  Roman  ernperor. 

London's  calamity  was  the  opportunity  for  this 
little  man  of  mighty  intellect.  Four  days  after  the 
fire  ceased  he  laid  before  the  king  the  sketch  of  his 
plan  for  the  restoration  of  the  city.  He  looked  far 
into  the  future,  and  in  vision  saw  a  splendid  town 
built  on  a  well-conceived,  harmonious  plan.  He 
proposed  to  have  Ludgate  Hill  widen  as  it  ap- 
proached St.  Paul's,  where  it  would  divide  into  two 
broad  streets  around  the  cathedral  and  leave  ample 
space  for  its  huge  mass  to  be  plainly  viewed.  One 
of  these  streets  should  lead  to  the  Tower  and  the 
other  to  the  Royal  Exchange,  which  was  to  be  the 
centre  of  the  city.  Around  it  should  be  a  great 
piazza,  from  which  ten  streets  were  to  lead,  and  on 
the  outer  edge  of  this  piazza  would  be  situated  the 
Post-Office,  the  Mint,  and  other  important  buildings. 
"  All  churchyards,  gardens,  and  trades  that  use 
great  fires  and  noisome  smells  "  were  to  be  rele- 
gated to  the  country,  and  the  churches  with  their 
i- pi  res  were  to  be  placed  in  prominent  positions  on 
the  main  thoroughfares. 


302  f  jflDUton's 

All  this  meant  present  sacrifice  for  future  good; 
but  the  short-sighted  and  impatient  Londoners 
thought  of  the  crying  needs  of  the  present  year 
alone.  The  architect  might  implore  and  weep  bitter 
tears,  but  all  in  vain.  London  must  rise  again  on  its 
old,  congested  plan,  with  its  crooked  alleyways  and 
narrow  courts.  But,  though  the  ground-plan  was  dis 
carded,  Wren  was  to  make  the  new  city  his  monu- 
ment. Besides  St.  Paul's  he  built  within  and  without 
the  walls  fifty  parish  churches,  thirty-six  of  the 
companies'  halls,  the  Custom  House,  and  much 
besides. 

During  the  last  eight  years  of  Milton's  life,  the 
destruction  of  the  walls  of  St.  Paul's  went  on  and 
the  new  edifice  was  assuming  shape  in  the  mind 
of  its  creator.  The  old  walls  were  blown  down  by 
gunpowder  explosions  and  by  battering-rams.  This 
took  -about  two  years,  and  the  clearing  away  of  rub- 
bish and  building  the  massive  foundations,  longer 
still.  Several  schemes  were  considered  and  rejected, 
and  the  plan  which  finally  took  its  present  form  was 
not  begun  until  the  funeral  wreaths  were  withered 
upon  Milton's  grave.  Into  the  history  of  this  mighty 
structure  we  may  not  enter.  In  1710  the  last  stone 
of  the  lantern  above  the  dome  was  laid  by  Wren's 
son  in  the  presence  of  the  now  aged  architect  and  of 
all  London,  which  assembled  for  the  proud  spectacle. 


flDtlton'8  England  3°3 

The  fair  walls,  ungrimed  by  soot  and  smoke,  rose 
fresh  and  perfect,  a  monument  to  one  of  the  greatest 
geniuses  of  all  time. 

One  building  erected  the  year  after  Milton's 
death  is  worth  mentioning  as  an  illustration  of  the 
consideration  shown  for  the  insane  at  that  period. 
Bethlehem  Hospital,  which  has  been  referred  to, 
was  in  Milton's  time  situated  on  Bishopsgate  Street 
Without.  "  This  hospital  stood  in  an  obscure  and 
close  place  near  unto  many  common  sewers;  and 
also  was  too  little  to  receive  and  entertain  the  great 
number  of  distracted  Persons  both  men  and  women," 
writes  an  old  author.  But  the  city  with  admirable 
public  spirit  gave  ground  for  a  better  site  against 
London  wall  near  Moorfields.  A  handsome  brick 
and  stone  structure  540  feet  long  was  erected  in 
1675,  and  large  gardens  were  provided  for  the  less 
insane.  Over  the  gate  were  placed  two  figures  repre- 
senting a  distracted  man  and  woman.  This  building 
had  a  cupola  surmounted  by  a  gilded  ball ;  there 
was  a  clock  within  and  "  three  fair  dials  without." 
Men  occupied  one  end  of  the  building,  and  women 
the  other.  Hot  and  cold  baths  were  provided,  and 
there  was  a  "  stove  room,"  where  in  the  winter  the 
patients  might  assemble  for  warmth.  Considering 
the  ignorance  of  the  time,  astonishingly  good  sense 
was  displayed  in  all  the  arrangements,  insomuch  that 
two  out  of  every  three  persons  were  reported  cured. 


flDUton's  England 

As  if  this  were  not  enough  for  one  man's  work, 
Wren  of  course  was  busy  all  these  years  with  the 
care  of  all  the  churches.  Before  Milton  died  he 
had  been  knighted,  and  lived  in  a  spacious  mansion 
in  Great  Russell  Square.  He  had  by  then  rebuilt 
St.  Dunstan's  in  the  East  in  Tower  Ward;  St. 
Mildred's,  Bread  Street  Ward;  St.  Mary's,  Alder- 
manbury;  St.  Edmund  the  King's;  St.  Lawrence's, 
Jewry;  St.  Michael's.  Cornhill,  where  he  attempted 
Gothic  work;  the  beautiful  St.  Stephen's,  Wall- 
brook;  St.  Olave's,  Jewry;  St.  Martin's,  Ludgate; 
St.  Michael's,  Wood  Street;  St.  Dionis's,  Lang- 
bourne  Ward ;  St.  George's,  Botolph  Lane ;  and  the 
Custom  House. 

No  interior,  either  of  these  or  those  that  fol- 
lowed these,  is  so  perfect  as  St.  Stephen's,  Wall- 
brook.  Architecturally  speaking,  it  has  been  ques- 
tioned whether  St.  Paul's  itself  shows  greater 
genius. 

In  most  of  his  labours  Wren  was  embarrassed  by 
lack  of  adequate  funds  and  the  caprice  of  his 
employers.  Most  of  his  churches  were  ingenious 
compromises  between  his  ideals  and  their  necessi- 
ties or  whims.  His  spires  were  in  the  Renaissance 
forms,  but  of  endless  variations.  The  most  beautiful 
are  so  placed  as  rarely  to  be  seen  to  advantage. 
Probably  the  most  admired  of  all  of  them  are  St. 


BOW    STEEPLE,    CHEAPSIDE 

From  <i  fririt  published  in  ijqS. 


flMlton's  Englatto  305 

Bride's  and  St.  Mary  le  Bow.  The  former,  which 
overshadows  the  spot  where  Milton  conceived  the 
plan  of  "  Paradise  Lost,"  is  situated  on  a  little 
narrow  street  called  after  St.  Bride  or  Bridget,  the 
Irish  maiden,  who  died  in  525.  She  had  a  holy  well, 
which  is  commemorated  by  an  iron  pump  within 
a  niche  upon  its  site. 

The  lofty  spire  of  the  church  rises  to  an  altitude 
of  226  feet,  a  trifle  higher  than  Bunker  Hill  Monu- 
ment, in  Charlestown,  Massachusetts,  which  is  a 
measuring-rod  for  many  Americans. 

St.  Mary  le  Bow  is  on  the  site  of  a  Norman  church 
of  the  Conqueror's  time,  and  so  named  because  it 
was  built  on  arches  or  "  bows "  of  stone.  This 
crypt  still  remains.  The  steeple  of  the  later  church, 
which  rang  its  bells  above  the  head  of  little  John 
Milton  on  Bread  Street,  close  by,  was  built  a  hun- 
dred and  fifty  years  before  his  birth;  the  church 
was  said  to  have  been  a  rather  low,  poor  building. 
Bow  bells  were  nightly  rung  at  nine  o'clock,  but  an 
old  couplet  shows  that  they  were  not  always 
punctual : 

"  Clark  of  the  Bow  Bell,  with  the  yellow  lockes, 
For  thy  late  ringing,  thy  head  shall  have  knockes." 

To  which  the  clerk  responded : 

"  Children  of  Cheape,  hold  you  all  still, 
For  you  shall  have  the  Bow  Bell  rung  at  your  will." 


306  flDttton's  England 

From  the  days  when  little  Dick  Whittington, 
a  forlorn  runaway,  heard  from  far  Bow  bells  sum- 
mon him  back  to  London,  the  bells  have  played  a 
notable  part  in  the  life  of  Londoners.  A  true  cock- 
ney is  supposed  to  be  one  born  within  hearing  of 
these  bells.  Certainly  the  boy  in  Spread  Eagle  Court 
deserved  the  title. 

The  spire  of  St.  Mary  le  Bow  rises  a  little  higher 
than  St.  Bride's,  and  bears  a  golden  dragon  nine 
feet  long. 

Upon  the  side  of  Bow  Church,  half  hidden  behind 
the  tower,  is  an  inscription  which  the  pilgrim  to 
Milton's  London  will  step  aside  to  read.  It  is 
on  the  tablet  which  was  transferred  from  All 
Hallows  Church,  in  which  Milton  was  baptised, 
when  it  was  torn  down.  It  closes  with  the  familiar 
lines  of  Dryden,  the  poet  whom  England  most  ad- 
mired when  this  new  spire  of  Wren's  was  rising 
upon  the  ruins  of  the  old,  and  close  beside  the  birth- 
place of  the  greatest  soul  ever  born  to  London  in  all 
her  two  millenniums  of  history. 

"  Three  poets,  in  three  distant  ages  born, 
Greece,  Italy,  and  England  did  adorn. 
The  first  in  loftiness  of  thought  surpassed, 
The  next  in  majesty,  in  both  the  last; 
The  force  of  nature  could  no  farther  go, 
To  make  a  third  she  joined  the  other  two." 

THE    END. 


Inter 


Aldersgate  Street,  89,  122. 

Aldgate,  155. 

All  Hallows,  Barking,  143. 

All  Hallows  Church,  Bread  St., 

42,  45,  306. 
All  Hallows,  Staining,  tower  of, 

i$S- 

Amersham,  116. 

Andrewes,  Bishop,  289. 

"  Arcades,"  81. 

"  Areopagitica,"  94. 

Artillery  Walk,  no,  119. 

Ascham,  Roger,  201. 

Askew,  Anne,  191. 

Austin  Friars,  24. 

Austin  Friars'  Church,  185-188. 

Bacon,  Francis,  225. 

Bancroft,  Francis,  173. 

Barbican,  95. 

Bartholomew  Close,  105. 

Bartholomew  Fair,  218. 

Baroni,  Leonora,  87. 

Baxter,  Richard,  107,  108,   197, 

276. 

Beaconsfield,  113,  115. 
Beaumont,  288. 
Bethlehem  Hospital,  175,  303. 
Billingsgate,  292. 
Blake,  Admiral,  257. 
"  Blindness,  On   His,"  Milton's 

ode,  104. 
Blue  Coat  School,  195-199. 


Boleyn,  Annie,  132,  283. 
Bread  Street,  42-46,  1 20. 
Browne,  Robert,  68. 
Buckingham,     Duke     of,     243, 

256. 

Buckinghamshire,  112-119. 
Bunhill  Fields,  in,  120. 
Burke,  Edmund,  1 16. 
Burleigh,  226. 

Caesar,  Sir  Julius,  174. 
Cambridge,     57-77 ;    university 

life  in  Milton's  time,  64. 
Camden,  William,  252,  266. 
Caxton,  William,  269. 
Chalfont  St.  Giles,  in,  112. 
Charles  I.,  244-248,  272,  274. 
Charles  II.,  250,  262,  298. 
Charing  Cross,  99. 
Charterhouse,  202-208. 
Cheever,  Ezekiel,  198. 
Chenies,  112. 
Chequer's  Court,  118. 
'"Cheshire  Cheese,  The,"  229. 
Christ's  Church,  197. 
Christ's  College,  59,  62. 
Christ's  Hospital,  195-199. 
Civil  War,  87,  92. 
Clarendon,  EarKof,  259. 
"  Comus,"  80,  82,  96. 
Conventual  establishments,  22. 
Covent  Garden,  237-239. 
Cranmer,  Archbishop,  280. 


307 


3o8 


Cromwell,  Oliver,  59,  92,  101, 
141,  180,  228,  244,  248,  249, 
256-258,  261. 

"Cromwell,  Ode  to,"  Milton's, 
104,  1 06. 

Cromwell,  Richard,  105,  in. 

Crosby  Hall,  164-170. 

Danish  Remains  in  London,  20. 
Darwin  at  Christ's  College,  64. 
Dickens       on       Old       London 

Churches,  152-154. 
Diodati,  Charles,  88,  91. 
Dryden,  John,  122,  248,  297,  306. 
Dutch  in  London,  186. 

Education,    Milton's    Essay  on, 

94. 
Eliot,    Sir   John,   134-136,   268, 

270. 

Elizabethan  Age,  36. 
Elizabeth,  Queen,  208,  241,  262. 
Ellwood,     Thomas,     109,     in, 

US- 
Ely  Cathedral,  71. 
Ely  Place,  221. 
Emmanuel  College,  60,  62. 
Evelyn,  267,  296. 
Exchange,  The  Royal,  184,  298. 

Fire  of  London,  The  Great,  120, 

145,  189,  295-298. 
Fletcher,  288. 
Forest  Hill,  93. 
Fox,  George,  120. 
Fox,  John,  181. 
"  Fresher's  Don't,  The,"  76. 
Frobisher,  Martin,  181. 

Galileo,  86. 

Gatehouse,  Westminster,  267. 
Geneva,  Milton  at,  87. 
Gill,  Alexander,  Milton's  school- 
master, 53. 
Globe  Theatre,  286. 
Gog  and  Magog,  190. 
Gothic  architecture,  26-30,  34. 


Gray's  Inn,  225. 

Great  Hampden,  117. 

Great  Kimble,  119. 

Gresham  College,  184. 

Gresham,  Sir  Thomas,  172,  184. 

Grey,  Lady  Jane,  132. 

Grotius,  Hugo,  85. 

Grub  Street,  in. 

Guild  Hall,  The,  189-193. 

Hakluyt,  Richard,  266. 
Hampden,  John,  117-119,  268. 
Hatton,  Sir  Christopher,  223. 
Haw,  The,  51. 

Heminge    and    Condell,   monu- 
ment to,  193. 
Henry  VIII.,  249. 
Heylin,  Peter,  261. 
Hobson,  57. 
Holbein,  157,  241. 
Holborn,  98,  106,  225. 
Hooker,  Richard,  234. 
Horton,  78-84,  92. 

"  II  Penseroso,"  68,  82. 
Inns  of  Court,  225-235. 
Ireland,  Horrors  in,  92. 
Italy,  Milton  in,  86. 

James  I.,  262. 

Jeffreys,  Judge,  196,  234. 

Jerusalem  Chamber,  264. 

Jesus  College,  60. 

Jewin  Street,  107. 

Jones,     Inigo,     238,    240,    242, 

262. 

Jonson,  Ben,  180,  228,  252. 
Jordan's,  115. 
Juxon,  Bishop,  246,  280. 

King's  College  Chapel,  67. 
King,  Edward,  82. 
Knox,  John,  116. 

"  L'Allegro,"  82. 
Lambeth  Palace,  277-286. 
Lasco,  John  a,  186,  188. 


309 


Laud,  Archbishop,  144,  156,  281, 
284. 

Lawes,  Henry,  81,  96,  97,  224. 

Lincoln's  Inn,  227-228. 

Lincoln's  Inn  Fields,  98. 

Lollard's  Tower,  49,  282. 

London,  origin  and  early  topog- 
raphy, 14-25. 

London  life  in  Milton's  time, 
38-40. 

London  Bridge,  289-291. 

Long  Acre,  237. 

Lovelace,  Richard,  268. 

"  Lycidas,"  82,  83. 

Manso,  87. 

Mary  of  Modena,  278. 

Marvell,  Andrew,  104,  108,  247, 

248. 
"  Massacre  in  Piedmont,  On  the 

Late,"  104. 
Massinger,  288. 
Mermaid  Tavern,  46. 
Milborne,  Sir  John,  almshouses 

built  by,  154. 
Mildmay,  Sir  Walter,  214. 
Milton,  Anne,  sister  of  the  poet, 

43.  57.83,  89,  124. 
Milton,  Christopher,  brother  of 

the  poet,  43,  83,  92,  97,  124. 
Milton,   Deborah,    daughter    of 

the  poet,  102,  107,  108,  124. 
Milton,  John,  father  of  the  poet, 

42,  78,  92,  94,  97. 
Milton,  John,  son  of  the  poet, 

102. 
Milton,  Mary,  daughter  of  the 

poet,  98,  107,  108,  no. 
Milton,    Sarah,   mother   of   the 

poet,  43,  83. 
Milton  Street,  in. 
Minshull,     Elizabeth,     Milton's 

wife,  no,  123,  124. 
More,  Sir  Thomas,  131, 166,  241. 
Morland,  Sir  Samuel,  251. 
"  Morning  of  Christ's  Nativity, 

On  the,"  72. 


Newgate,  199. 
Newton,  Isaac,  249. 
Norman  remains  in  London,  21, 
24. 

Oxford,  62,  67,  93. 

Painted  Chamber,  Westminster, 
270,  272. 

Paley,  William,  at  Christ's  Col- 
lege, 63. 

Pall  Mall,  ico. 

"  Paradise  Lost,"  89,   105,   107, 

III,   114,   I2O-I22,  158. 

"Paradise  Regained,"  114. 
Paris,  Milton  in,  85,  88. 
Parr,  Old,  253. 
Pembroke,  Countess  of,  169. 
Penn,  William,  115,  145. 
Pepys,  Samuel,  147-150. 
Peter  the  Great,  145. 
Petty  France,  102. 
Philips,  Edward,  89,  94. 
Philips,  John,  89,  94. 
Pindar,  Sir  Paul,  177. 
Plague,  The  Great,  in,  293. 
Plantagenet  Period,  22,  28. 
Powell,    Anne,    Milton's    wife's 

mother,  97. 
Powell,    Mary,     Milton's     wife, 

93.  95«  97,  102. 
Prynne,  273. 

Puritans  at  Cambridge,  60. 
Pym,  John,  260. 

Queen's  Head  Tavern,  155. 

Raleigh,   Sir   Walter,   133,    267, 

268. 

Ranelagh,  Lady,  104. 
Raphael  cartoons,  248. 
Reading,  92. 
Red  Cross  Hall,  286. 
Red  Lion  Square,  106. 
Renaissance  architecture,  30-33. 
Richard  II.,  129. 
Richard  HI.,  129,  165,  190. 


310 


fn&ex 


Rogers,  John,  201,  216,  287. 
Roman  remains  in  London,  16. 
Runnymede,  84. 

Salmasius,  102. 

St.  Andrew  Undershaft,  church 

of,  158. 
St.     Bartholomew     the    Great, 

church  of,  24,  211-215. 
St.  Bartholomew's  Hospital,  215. 
St.  Bride's  Church,  305. 
St.  Bride's  Churchyard,  89. 
St.  Catherine  Crees  Church,  156. 
St.    Ethelburga's   Church,  175- 

176. 
St.ji  Etheldreda's   Church,   221- 

222. 
St.  George's  Chapel,    Windsor, 

248. 

"Saint  Ghastly  Grim,"  152. 
St.  Giles's  Church,  Cripplegate, 

38,  97,  107,  120,  123,  178-183. 
St.  Helen's  Church,  Bishopsgate, 

24,  171-175- 

St.  James's  Palace,  100,  246,  248. 
St.  James's  Park,  99,  103. 
St.  John's  Gate,  209. 
St.  John,  Knights  of,  209. 
St.  Jude's  Church,  156. 
St.  Margaret's  Church,  104,  268, 

275- 

St.  Martin's  Lane,  99. 
St.  Martin  in  the  Fields,  100. 
St.  Mary  Aldermanbury,  church 

of,  104,  193. 
St.  Mary  Aldermary,  church  of, 

no. 
St.    Mary  le    Bow,    church   of, 

3°5- 
St.   Mary   Overy's    Church,   24, 

287. 

St.  Olave's  Church,  146. 
St.  Paul's,  old  cathedral,  48, 121, 

297  ;  new  cathedral,  302. 
St.  Paul's  Cross,  50. 
St.  Paul's  School,  48,  52 ;  early 

cathedral  body,  23. 


St.  Peter's  Church,  126,  132. 

St.  Saviour's,  Southwark,  287. 

St.  Sepulchre's  Church,  199. 

St.  Stephen's  Chapel,  270. 

St.  Stephen's,  Wallbrook, 
church  of,  33,  304. 

"  Samson,"  89. 

Sanctuary,  Westminster,  269. 

Saxon  names  in  London,  17. 

Scotland  Yard,  101,  102,  240. 

Scudamore,  Lord,  85,  103. 

Selden,  233. 

Shakespeare,  165,  255,  288. 

Sidney,  Algernon,  107. 

Sidney  Sussex  College,  59,  62. 

Skinner,  Cyriack,  97,  104,  108. 

Smithfield,  215-220. 

Smith,  John,  Captain,  200. 

Somerset  House,  239,  257. 

Spencer,  Sir  John,  166,  174. 

Spenser,  Edmund,  254. 

Sprat,  Thomas,  dean  of  West- 
minster, 258. 

Spread  Eagle  Court,  45. 

Spring  Gardens,  99,  101,  103. 

Staple  Inn,  266. 

Star  Chamber,  270,  272. 

Stow,  John,  158-163. 

Strode,  William,  261. 

Sutton,  Thomas,  204. 

Tabard  Inn,  286. 
Temple,  The,  228-235. 
Temple  Bar,  229. 
Temple  Church,  The,  229. 
Thackeray  on  the  Charterhouse, 

206. 
Thockmorton,  Sir  Nicholas,  157, 

193- 

Tower  Hill,  139,  144. 
Tower  of  London,  Th«,  126-136. 
Toynbee  Hall,  156. 
Trafalgar  Square,  99,  100. 
Trinity  College  Library,  Milton 

manuscript  in,  73,  89. 
Turner,  William,  150. 
Tyndale,  201. 


flnfcei 


Usher,  Archbishop,  247,  265. 

Vane,    Sir   Harry,   91,   99,   107, 

136-141. 
Vane,  Milton's  Ode  to,  104. 

Waller,  Edmund,  116. 
Wendover,  117. 
Westminster  Abbey,  250-266. 
Westminster  Assembly,  264. 
Westminster  Hall,  261,  274. 
Westminster  Palace,  269. 
Westminster  School,  266. 
Whitechapel,  156. 


Whitehall,  99,  roi,  240-250. 
Whittington's  Palace,  145. 
Williams,  Roger,  61,  188,  204. 
Windsor,  79,  248. 
Wolsey,  Cardinal,  241. 
Woodcocke,  Katharine,  104,  193, 

195.  275- 

Wotton,  Sir  Henry,  85,  124. 
Wren,  Sir  Christopher,  184,  240, 

263,  266,  299-304. 

York  Street,  102. 
Young,  Milton's  early  preceptor, 
47- 


2iQ  *>  o  •""• 
o&o5 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


A    000  677  058    o 


